Portland Mortgage Broker

So maybe some of you have heard of Zillow’s latest great idea – trying to connect mortgage lenders with borrowers, based on whatever the borrower tells the lender about his or her credit & borrowing profile. The new program is called the Mortgage Marketplace. Here is a link to a page discussing the arrangement: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/4302008_Zillow_Mortgage_Leads.asp [...]

Confidence among U.S. consumers fell to a five-year low in April as they confronted the grimmest jobs market since autumn 2004, the Conference Board said. The private Conference Board’s index of consumer sentiment fell to 62.3 in April, the lowest since March 2003, when the Iraq war was launched, from an upwardly revised 65.9 in [...]

The Federal Reserve has been on a rate cutting spree once more. Many mortgage applicants are calling their mortgage representative and expecting a lower interest rate. Others who have been waiting to refinance are puzzled as to why mortgage rates have not moved lower during the recent six Fed rate cuts. This is difficult to [...]

U.S. house prices rose 0.6% in February following January’s 1.1% decline, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) reported Tuesday. Economists had expected a monthly decline of 1.5%. In the previous month, U.S. home prices fell 1.1% between December 2007 and January 2008, contributing to a 12-month decline of 3.0%. For the 12 months [...]

I just read a report this morning claiming that the housing market will not “rebound” for a number of months. Nationally, we have 9.9 months of inventory, a 7.7% decline in median home prices, and 18% of all homes for sale right now have negative equity. Beyond this, lenders are dragging their feet to approve [...]

Here’s some interesting news released late last month by the National Association of Realtors, or NAR. According to the study, second home & investment home sales declined with the overall market in 2007, but they still accounted for 33% of all new and existing home sales. For comparison purposes, consider that in 2006 the sale [...]

Economic Week in Review: Sharp increase in February trade deficit The week’s rather light offering of economic data revealed that the nation’s trade deficit grew significantly in February. In addition, consumers continued to use credit cards in February to finance their spending—albeit at a slower rate. Tuesday’s release of the minutes from last month’s Federal [...]

The Senate on Thursday passed a bipartisan package of tax breaks and other steps designed to help businesses and homeowners weather the housing crisis. Unfortunately, though the measure passed by an impressive 84 to 12 vote, it still leans too far in favor of banks and home builders and does little to help borrowers at [...]