GM filed for bankruptcy a few days ago. A buddy told me, “This would be bad news if anyone had actually bought a GM car in the last five years. They say that the company will emerge from bankruptcy in three years or 36,000 miles, whichever comes first.” There are some witty folks out there.

Loan Officer Quotes On Appraisal Rules & FHA Loans Here are some quotes from real-live people in the mortgage business, concerning the HVCC & FHA loans:

Politics & Regulation Election Day at last! It seems that this “election” has been going on for years, and I, for one, am at a loss wondering what the press is going to write and talk about, now that it is almost over. Maybe they’ll focus on FHA loans (the new subprime, with the taxpayer [...]

What is new besides Vice Presidential nominee Palin’s 17-yr old unmarried daughter being pregnant? Not much is new with mortgages, aside from rates being higher this morning. A farmer won $50 million in the multi-state lottery. When his local newspaper asked him what he was going to do with the money, he replied: “I’m going [...]

It seems that not a day goes by without someone asking, “Why are the numbers on a telephone key-pad reversed from those on a computer keyboard?” I don’t know why, but if one is really curious, or for that matter hadn’t even noticed until I just wrote that, click here.

Fixed and ARM rates open this week approximately even over last week. We had a run up in rates in the two weeks leading up to last Wednesday’s FOMC announcement that they were holding the overnight bank-to-bank Fed Funds Rate at 2%, but increased credit crunch pressures have weighed on the market. As stocks have [...]

Former NBA star Latrell Sprewell joined Michael Vick and Jose Canseco by giving up/losing his home according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc unit RBS Citizens NA foreclosed on the property May 12, when Sprewell failed to show up in court to contest the proceedings. Sprewell once turned down a [...]

As 2006 ended, most economists and Fed officials were expecting the economy to be crippled by high energy prices plus weak housing and manufacturing. But so far in 2007, wages and employment are increasing, energy costs are dropping, and even housing is holding up in many areas. All of this means rates have climbed and [...]

Since the Fed rate pause on September 20, fixed and ARM rates have come down about .25%. The logic driving rate markets lower is that the Fed’s 4.25% of rate hikes from June 2004 to June 2006 have beat inflation out of the economy. But since inflation data lags the economy by about six months, [...]

As expected, rates open this week only slightly higher. This is a huge week for rates, beginning Tuesday with the year’s first and Alan Greenspan’s last Fed meeting, where we can expect the overnight Fed Funds Rate to go from 4.25% to 4.5%. This would put Fed Funds and the 10-yr Treasury bond yield at [...]