As the long anticipated Memoria Day weekend approaches, I wanted to share a few thoughts about the state of the real estate market and how improving sales of existing homes is impacting the market.  The numbers provide a good and important confirmatioon that we are in a recovery mode and the housing market may be leading us out of the rut we've been in. 

The number of existing homes to close their sales in April rose by 3.4% above the number in March.  It is a very impressive jump, especially after the prior month's dissappointing 2.8% decline.  Bloomberg in a survey has been told that sales would jump to 4.660 million, but this tells us that current set of figures don't result in an unexpectedly large jump in sales volume, which would have given them more of an impact on the markets. 

Here is an important bit of information to me:  Discounted and distress properties are playing a far smaller role in the real estate market at this point.  The National Association of Realtors (NAR) estimated that the number of distress sales in April totaled less than a third of all sales in the month.  NAR also found that the smaller number of lower priced homes on the market and among the sales is pushing the median price higher.  The median home price, its turns out, rose by 10.1% year-over-year, and that's the best number we've seen in over six years. 

Truly, all the news seems to be pointed in the right direction!  Are we ready to break out the bubbly?  I'm not ready for that.  Should we elect a more market friendly President and congress to go with it, then I'll break out a large bottle of Frances's best!!

As a person in the Mortgage Lending business, now is a great time to think about what to do with your curent mortgage.  Is the rate in the 5.5% or above range?  If so, you can refinance right now to much lower rates, or drop your term to 10 to 15 years!  In some cases, the 15 year rate will allow you to have a payment about the same as your 30 year rate.  My suggestion is to allow us to take a look.  We can line up three to four loans side be side and you can see the comparisons, then determine if refinancing is something you may want to do. 

FHA is coming with a new streamline refinance starting in June of this year.  There is no income verification and no appraisal needed.  You will have to prove you have made your payments on time for at least 12 months, and we can do that with your credit report or do a verification of mortgage (VOM). The upfront mortgage insurance will only be 1% instead of the 1.75% for a new purchase.  Also, the monthly mortgage insurance will be set at 0.5% instead of the 1.25% on a new purchase.  Therefore, should you currently own an FHA mortgage, and you originated that mortgage before June 1, 2009, you are elligible to participate.  This is an excellent program and my only wish is that HUD would allow the origination to be at least June of 2010 for elligibility!  Call me if you have questions. 601-829-5001.
Joe