Mortgage Rates on the Rise

After all time lows, it seems mortgage rates are once again rising, reaching a two year high this week. Check out the story by Les Christie at CNN Money.

Rates climbed 0.22 percentage points to 4.51% for a 30-year, fixed-rate loan this week, the highest it has been since July 2011. Meanwhile, the average rate for a 15-year loan hit 3.53%, up 0.14 percentage points.

Full Story Mortgage rates reach highest level in 2 years

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Paying Off Your Mortgage

Is paying off your mortgage or debt first better than just investing? Here is a wonderful article from Deborah L Jacobs, Personal Finance writer for Forbes.

As a personal finance writer I hear a lot of investment advice. To my skeptic’s eye, much of it is too risky, unnecessarily complicated or involves hidden fees. The best advice I ever received was to pay off my mortgage. I did that seven years ago and have been reaping the benefits ever since.

This advice came not from a financial advisor, but from Marc Eisenson, an engineer and electrical contractor who is now retired. In 1991, shortly after I changed careers — from law to journalism — he sent me a copy of his book The Banker’s Secret (Villard Books). It came with software that you could use to calculate how much money you could save in interest by paying off your mortgage more quickly than the bank requires.

Full Story The Best Investment Advice I Ever Received

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Buying Investment Property with Cash

Is is better to buy investment property with cash or a mortgage?  Check out the thoughts of Chris Joseph, an eHow.com contributor for reasons why it might be.

Prospective real estate investors may choose to purchase a property in cash instead of taking out a mortgage. According to the SmartMoney website, as many as 60 percent of investors were using cash to purchase second properties as of 2011. Although using cash may deplete financial reserves, it does offer a number of advantages for potential investors. 

Read more: The Advantages of Paying Cash for Investment Properties

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Calculating Your Payments

Can I afford it?

A question asked many times when we think of purchasing anything.
You find the property you've always wanted, but now you need to know if you can fit the payments into your budget.

The Wisconsin Realtors Association has a great Mortgage Calculator for you. Put in your purchase information and you can see what your monthy payment will be. It also has Table and Graph where you can see how fast your equity will grow.

Want to know how much of a payment you can afford? This site also has a Affordability Calculator. Put in your current income and expenses and it will give you the monthly payment that will work for you.

More questions? At BuyWisconsinLand.com we're always happy to help you with your real estate search. Call 877-339-6535 or email property@buywisconsinland.com

Mortgage Rates Falling

Some good news from the Wall Street Journal

The financial turmoil in Europe is providing an unexpected windfall for American home buyers, as international money seeking a safe haven is flowing into the U.S., pushing domestic mortgage rates to the lowest levels of the year and back near 50-year lows.
The housing industry had been bracing for months for a period of rising mortgage rates, triggered by the end of the Federal Reserve's $1.25 trillion mortgage-securities purchase program. Conventional wisdom held that mortgage rates would rise as the Fed pulled back from propping up the market.
Instead, many in the industry now say rates could drift as low as 4.5% this summer from 4.86% now, instead of rising to 6% as some economists projected, making for significantly lower payments for Americans buying homes or refinancing their mortgages.
Full Story Mortgage Rates Decline - Home Buyers Get Surprise Boost From Europe Crisis as Loans Drop to Below 5%

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