Mortgages
« Previous EntriesMore Talk of Mortgage Principal Reductions
Thursday, February 24th, 2011In today’s WSJ: The Obama administration is trying to push through a settlement over mortgage-servicing breakdowns that could force America’s largest banks to pay for reductions in loan principal worth billions of dollars. Terms of the administration’s proposal include a commitment from mortgage servicers to reduce the loan balances of troubled borrowers who owe more [...]
Facing Losses
Friday, January 21st, 2011My last post brought a passage from Meir Statman’s What Investors Really Want: Know What Drives Investor Behavior and Make Smarter Financial Decisions* to mind regarding the housing market. The passage comes from Chapter 10 – We Want to Face No Losses: Houses sell quickly in boom times at prices that exceed list prices. Yet [...]
Inflation and Your Mortgage
Thursday, September 16th, 2010Mark’s comment on yesterday’s post inspired this post. Thanks, Mark! I have written about the impact of inflation on mortgage payments in the past (see: Your Mortgage May Not Be As Expensive As You Think It Is). The problem with old posts is that they get buried and no one ever reads them again. The [...]
Things to Think About Before You Refinance Your Mortgage
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010Larry Swedroe posted an interesting article on how to do the math on a mortgage refinancing to find out whether or not it’s to your benefit to refinance. He used the following example: • 12 years left on a 15-year mortgage. • Current mortgage rate is 4.75%. • Current monthly payment $1,369 • Current balance [...]
The 15-Year Mortgage Is Gaining in Popularity
Friday, September 10th, 2010I just read A 15-Year Mortgage Isn’t for Everyone over on Yahoo Finance. The author basically says what I have said in the past. According to the article, more people are choosing the 15-year mortgage than during the past. Why? The financial situation of the people capable of refinancing today is a factor in the [...]
This Probably Comes as No Surprise…
Friday, March 26th, 2010From Bloomberg: More than half of U.S. borrowers who received loan modifications on delinquent mortgages defaulted again after nine months, according to a federal report. The re-default rate of loans modified in the first quarter of 2009 was 51.5 percent by the end of the year, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and [...]
One AFM Reader’s Response to a New York Times Op-Ed Piece
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010AFM reader, “EZ,” sent me an email with a link to this op-ed piece that was recently published in the New York Times. The op-ed piece was about how the bankruptcy process should be easier so that “American families torn apart by the economic upheavals of the last two years…” (Ronald Mann’s words) can move [...]
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