The national housing market got three pieces of good news in 3 days last week: Monday: Existing Home Sales up Tuesday: Home values appear higher nationally Wednesday: New Home Sales up And although national real estate statistics are irrelevant to the local markets in which real estate transactions happen, to a country of would-be and [...]

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If you’re in want of a cash out refinance, the most liberal cash-out program in town is about to make qualification more difficult. Effective April 1, 2009, the FHA is reducing the maximum loan-to-value on cash-out refinances by 10 percent, dropping the loan size limit from 95% of the home’s value to 85%. In its [...]

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In a tight economy, do-it-yourself home improvements projects not only save money, but may also justify a higher listing price for a soon-to-be home seller, and make the house stand out when buyers look at it. In the 4-minute video above, Sweat Equity host Amy Matthews talks with NBC’s Matt Lauer about affordable home upgrades [...]

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For the fifth time in a year, rate shoppers learned an important lesson this week: When mortgage rates plummet unexpectedly, they often recover just as fast. Wednesday, the Federal Reserve’s newest $750 billion mortgage market pledge helped to push conforming mortgage rates near their lowest levels since WWII. 24 hours later, however, those rates were [...]

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If you’re not rotating your mattress every 3 months, you may be shortening its lifespan.  Constant nightly pressure can “wear out” the areas on which you sleep, creating in-bed divots and reducing your sleeping comfort. The ExpertVillage.com video above — “How To Flip a Mattress” — is pretty self-explanatory.  But there’s a few other steps [...]

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Some of today’s media enhanced real estate myths challenged.

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Food-borne illness is three times more likely to occur at home than in a commercial kitchen.  It’s a fact that surprises a lot of people and one that experts attribute to a myriad of blunders including the improper storage of food, lack of cleanliness and unsafe food handling. As it turns out, keeping your fridge [...]

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Image by zoomar via Flickr If you are in the process of buying a house right now, you may be wondering where the deals are. Many properties still seem to be listed higher than you would expect, given all the national news about the real estate market. Some buyers have even decided to stay out [...]

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There’s a mixed message in February’s Housing Starts data and it may be a good sign for home sellers in the near-term. As reported by the government, new home construction rose by 22 percent last month.  The press is running with the headline number, calling it evidence of a market bottom. A more thorough inspection, however, [...]

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USA Today ran this 2008 Foreclosures By State heatmap last week, reminding us of a simple truth: Headline statistics can be misleading. According to data compiled by RealtyTrac, 1 in 8 U.S. homes were in various stages of default or delinquency at the end of 2008.  This is a fact and it was widely reported by [...]

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