C21AGVoices

More positive signals from housing — home values are still on the rise. According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, after posting its first quarterly increase since 2007 this past September, the Home Price Index rose by another 0.6 percent in October. Prices are up in 4 of the last six months.

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Like most housing data from November, the most recent New Home Sales report showed sales volume increasing last month, and home supplies falling.

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Image by sheldon0531 via Flickr One of my clients thought that their 45 minute move across townships would be easy. It was for her 15 year old son, who connected with new friends on Facebook even before they moved. But her 8 year old daughter did not have the same experience. You’d have thought they […]

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From my childhood – a Holiday message by R.O. Blechman for CBS in 1966 – at a time when we bemoaned the commercial nature of the holiday without knowing how much more commercial it was going to get – Have a wonderful Holiday – enjoy your time with your family whether you’re spending it at […]

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Fannie Mae raised the bar for mortgage applicants this past weekend.  Getting approved for a home loan just got harder, as if loan liquidity weren’t already the biggest problem facing home buyers. In its official announcement, Fannie Mae says the updates minimize long-term lending risks.  If that’s the case, this won’t be the last guideline […]

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APR is an acronym for Annual Percentage Rate.  It’s a government-mandated calculation meant to simplify the comparison of mortgage options. A loan’s APR can always be found in the top-left corner of the Federal Truth-In-Lending Disclosure. Because APR is expressed as a percentage, many people confuse it for the loan’s interest rate.  It’s not.  APR represents the total […]

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For today’s home buyers and homeowners that can manage the higher monthly payments, 15-year fixed rate mortgage rates look attractive as compared to comparable 30-year products. The 15-year/30-year interest rate spread is near its 5-year high. As a result, the savings afforded by the 15 year mortgage is at its 5 year high also. Despite […]

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Thanksgiving is Thursday. If you’re cooking for group (or a crowd) and you haven’t yet put your menu in order, click on through Bon Appetit’s Thanksgiving Menu Planner. Answer 3 basic questions and Bon Appetit serves up a list of dishes and their respective recipes. For how many people are you cooking? How much time do […]

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Image via Wikipedia It seems clear if you have never owned a house that you are eligible for the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit. But many consumers have different situations and have been asking me questions about the tax credit and if their situation  would allow them to be eligible. The new tax […]

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Image by reeltor99 via Flickr As Congress discusses a 6 month Extension of the First Time Home buyer Tax Credit with an additional credit for repeat home buyers, the results of the initial credit seem to be obvious when we look at the Pending Sales Market statistics from September for Philadelphia and surrounding counties. Pending […]

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