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Towards the end of 2015, two things happened that made some people worry about Interest rates, and potentially hold off on buying or refinancing — the change in mortgage regulations, which was predicted to slow down the process, at least in the short run; and the Fed rate hike. As I’ve written before, neither of…

Of course, we all know that some cities are expensive. When you talk about housing in San Francisco or New York, nobody thinks that comparing to the rest of the country is a sensible idea. But the reality is that, for decades, urban housing country-wide has been cheaper than suburban housing. But with changing demographics,…

If you’ve been following along with this blog for a while, then you probably now know that QE3 from the Fed helped keep interest rates down at least through 2014, and probably for three quarters thereafter. Also, you know that the Fed rate hike last year was unlikely to have any impact on long-term mortgage…

It’s taken a long time to “recover” from the 2008 crash. But, housing prices are up, foreclosures are down, and interest rates are good. What could possibly be wrong? Well, if we look to our friends over in the U.K., we hear the story that perhaps they didn’t learn from our 2008 crash. That could have big…

Happy Groundhog Day, everyone! Yesterday, as I was writing about the impact winter weather had on the housing market, I ended up wondering how much winter we really were likely to have left, and so naturally, my thoughts turned to the groundhog. Sadly, it turns out that groundhogs are not very good predictors (37% accuracy, and…

The housing market did excitingly well in December, at least in part (possibly primarily) because of the weather. U.S. News sees a bumpy 2016 ahead, but it’s not that clear from my perspective. To be sure, I expect January reports to be unusually bad, for the same reason that the December reports were good. And depending…

Although we don’t generally think about it, it’s fair to say that, somewhere in the back of our minds, we all know that there are lots of microscopic organisms running around that we’d just as soon (and do) forget about. Well, it turns out, not only do we have lots, we have more than anyone…

The same forces that are making the U.S. housing market look good, as we covered in yesterday’s post, are also increasing the strength of the dollar. The problem is that a strong dollar means cheaper imports, which ultimately puts a drain on U.S. manufacturing and the economy as a whole, which reduces people’s ability to purchase…

U.S. housing data is making the economy look better, even as other parts lag. And it’s true, the housing market, as we’ve covered for the last several quarters, is doing really well — and the recent Fed rate hike appears to have had little, if any, effect on that. However, as we’ve also pointed out before,…

We’ve already covered the fact that last quarter’s rate hike from the Fed shouldn’t have had any meaningful impact on long-term, fixed-rate mortgages. But everyone expected them to have an impact on short-term, adjustable rate mortgages. Contrary to prevailing wisdom, so far in January, refinancing is up significantly (12% week-over-week) and within those loans, the share of…