The Obama administration today announced a plan that will reduce the cost of refinancing for 2 to 3 million homeowners. The plan announced that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) will reduce the upfront mortgage insurance premium (UFMIP) form 1% to 0.1%, and the monthly insurance premium from 1.15% to 0.55%. The combination of these can save homeowners hundreds of dollars per month in fees, and allow them to take advantage of today’s historically low mortgage rates.

To qualify for this new plan, the current mortgage being refinanced must be an FHA loan originated prior to June1, 2009. The new loan must be an FHA Streamline refinance. The current mortgage must have also been current for the prior 12 months.

To find out if your loan qualifies, contact us today to speak with one of our FHA loan specialists.

As the Real Estate and financial markets continue to move up and down, mortgage rates can also be affected. Since mortgage rates are more closely tied to the bond markets, an up or down move in the stock market may not have the result in mortgage rates that one might expects. In fact, many times the resulting mortgage rate changes are counter-intuitive.

More importantly, rates change daily and they can change quickly. Some mortgage professionals have recently noted that their rate quotes have only had shelf lives of three to four hours before market changes have deemed them inaccurate.

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How does a consumer navigate fast changing markets in order to refinance their existing loan or purchase a home with the most favorable terms possible?

1. Plan – Define your needs ahead of time, do not wait until the last minute. This is especially true of home purchases.
2. Consult – Talk to your mortgage professional on a regular basis so they can interpret recent market events to you and communicate how those events can affect you.
3. Execute – When you have defined your needs and have determined that now is the best time to move forward, don’t shop yourself out of a good loan! What does this mean? It is easy to get caught up in shopping for the best rate, but it is not uncommon for home owners to miss locking their loan at a great rate because they are in search of better rates that do not exist or that they do not qualify for. It is important to shop to insure you are getting the best rate possible, but set limits to the number of companies you are going to consider doing business with and be careful of having your credit report needlessly and more times than is necessary!