If you live in an area prone to natural disasters, you’ll probably have to evacuate your home someday. Last year, 2.5 million folks were ordered out when Hurricane Irene neared the East Coast. Thousands were told to leave Texas in 2011 as 180 wildfires broke out across the state. And even the White House evacuated last year after an earthquake. Chances are good that someday you’ll evacuate as well.

I was working from home, just south of Reno, Nev., last Thursday when I got a reverse 911 call from the sheriff’s office, telling me that a large wildfire was moving quickly in my direction and that I should get to an evacuation center right away. My mind went blank, my knees turned to water and my hands started to shake. I grabbed my dogs, cat and laptop and fled for safety. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, blog.HSH.com reader Diana wrote in with the following comment:

I have perfect credit, have never been late on a payment, have a low debt-to-income ratio, but I can’t qualify for HARP because I currently have mortgage insurance. WTF? Is this a way to get people to buy mortgage insurance? I am so confused by this. I also heard there is going to be a HARP 3.

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If you were among the many watching the president’s State of the Union address last evening, chances are you didn’t even realize President Obama hinted at a new refinance plan. In fact, the word “refinance” didn’t even appear in the president’s speech. The term “refinancing” was only mentioned once.

“And that’s why I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low rates,” said the president.  “No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won’t add to the deficit and will give those banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.” Read the rest of this entry »

Is the FHA really in peril? The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank, apparently thinks so.

“No serious observer of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) believes its financial future is bright,” writes Peter J. Wallison and Edward J. Pinto in a recent market outlook titled, “Bet the house: why the FHA is going (for) broke.” Read the rest of this entry »

Low and stable mortgage rates and a modestly improving economy are starting to produce positive effects on the nation’s housing market. While starting from extraordinarily low levels, and though improvement is still of course tenuous, there have been accumulating signs of improvement for months.

If the economy can continue to nudge forward for a while longer without some new or already-known catastrophe to derail it, we just might have ourselves a housing market worth talking about when spring rolls around. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last few days we’ve had an influx of good comments come into the blog. I enlisted Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com and 25-year observer of the mortgage and real estate markets, to answer some of the recent questions we received.

1. The first question comes from Rick who commented on the post “Update 1: HARP receives one year extension—what’s the point?” Read the rest of this entry »

The use of automated valuation models (AVMs) can make it faster, easier and cheaper for mortgage lenders to value your home. But do they understate your home’s value and will they cost you money?

Heads up!

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Sometimes one basis point can make all the difference.

According to HSH.com’s latest Weekly Mortgage Rate Radar, the average rate for conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell by 1 basis point (0.01 percent) to 4.02 percent, a tiny drop that was nonetheless sufficient to produce yet another new record low. The average rate for conforming 5/1 hybrid ARMs increased by 1 basis point, closing the Wednesday-to-Tuesday wraparound weekly survey at an average of 2.97 percent, just above last week’s record low. Read the rest of this entry »

With the political season heating up, it should come as no surprise that the public is increasingly tying housing matters to the next election.

What may come as a surprise is the level of opposition to the mortgage interest deduction and other traditional write-offs.

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Below is the second portion of our two-part blog post, “Help! I’m stuck in an unsellable home.”

‘That’s what title insurance is for’

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