With the interest rates we’ve been experiencing for the past year or so, it may seem like there is no end in sight to historically low rates.
In the United States, Freddie Mac’s recent Primary Mortgage Market Survey, which provides a snapshot of U.S. average mortgage rates, reported a national average rate of 4.56 per cent with 0.7 points on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. At the same time last year, the rate was 5.2 per cent with 0.7 points. So once again, you might be asking yourself, is it time to refinance?
Assuming you can qualify to refinance your mortgage, here are some things to consider.
Your Overall Financial Picture
Refinancing can be a great way to save money. It can also be a great way to get yourself into financial trouble. You shouldn’t refinance if you suspect you will make a refinancing choice that will hurt your financial situation in the long term.
Your Breakeven Period
Your breakeven period is one of the most important considerations in a refinance. To determine your breakeven period, you need to look at the monthly savings you’ll create by refinancing and the total cost to refinance your loan.
The easiest and fastest way to get a complete picture of your refinancing situation is to use a detailed mortgage refinancing calculator, available online.
Are you still considering investing in real estate or are you just curious as to the state of your home’s market value in the near term? We admit that these days it’s hard to know where the market is headed. Some people will predict the value of property to go up only to see them come tumbling down again the next week. Some days we see an optimistic surge, some days we don’t. So what is really going to happen now? Continue reading Housing Market Predictions
In a news story issues by Reuters today, President Barack Obama was reported to be enlisting some extra help with boosting the confidence of business leaders in his administration. The person now joining President Obama in a White House meeting today was none other than former President Bill Clinton, who was president during an economic boom. The president was also said to have spoken to Warren Buffet for advice on how to increase growth and encourage job creation.
This was after the US Chamber of Commerce, which is an influential business group criticised the Obama administration’s economic agenda and forgetting to put a priority on generating jobs and hindering business growth by introducing more regulations and tax policies.
With this year being an election year, the Democrats are increasingly being on the defensive when it comes to policies that Republicans are painting as anti-business. This is probably one of Obama’s steps to bring back confidence in the Democrats’ economic policies and convince business leaders that this is a bitter pill that must be taken in order to keep the economy afloat in the long term.
The National bureau of Statistics in China released the results of a nationwide index of urban property prices. According to this survey, the price of property in China fell on the average during the previous month of June. It’s the first time that his has happened in the last 16 months. This may be welcome relief as we see the cooling effects of government policies to try and cool down the overheating property market in an attempt to avoid what may be a developing real estate bubble in China. The coverage of the data on property rates covers about 70 major cities and indicates a very slight drop in average property prices even if these are still over 11% more than the previous year. Continue reading June 2010 China Property Prices Fall
A reverse mortgage is a loan that’s taken out based on your home’s equity. It’s different from a home equity loan because there are no credit checks or income requirements. Additionally, you don’t have to make payments on a reverse mortgage the way you make payments on a home equity loan. You might think of a reverse mortgage as a home equity loan, without the payments and check – simply a loan that’s made based on the equity you have in your home.
