Luxe Austin Homes - mortgage

"Austin makes new list of 10 easiest cities to pay off a mortgage"

CultureMap Austin writes, "Whether a homeowner's mortgage lasts for 15 or 30 years, paying off such a large debt can be an arduous process. But luckily for homeowners living in the Austin area, paying off a mortgage is much easier than it is in many other large metropolitan areas in the country, according to a new report by SmartAsset.

Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown ranked No. 10 in SmartAsset's new study analyzing the top 40 large U.S. metros where it's easiest to pay off a mortgage. Rankings were determined based on the principal and interest payments for conventional 30-year fixed rate mortgages issued in 2023, relative to the median income of new homeowners.

Leading the nation as the No. 1 easiest place to pay off a mortgage is Pittsburgh,…

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"APR vs. Interest Rate: What’s the Difference Between These 2 Mortgage Terms?"

Realtor.com shares "APR vs. interest rate: What’s the difference? If you’re applying for a mortgage, these are two financial terms you need to understand. APR stands for “annual percentage rate,” or the amount of interest on your total loan that you’ll pay annually over the life of the loan. It’s slightly different from the interest rate, which is the cost you’ll pay each day based on your mortgage balance.

These terms might be foreign to you, especially if this is your first time buying a home. But don’t worry—we’ll break down what each one is so that you’re ready to be a savvy mortgage shopper. Let’s first start by discussing the mortgage interest rate.

What is a mortgage interest rate?

Simply put, the interest rate is the cost you will pay…

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"Is a Mortgage Pre-Approval Letter Necessary to Make an Offer on a House?"

Realtor.com explains, "the short answer is no. However, if you want your offer to be taken seriously and to stand out from any competing bids, this little piece of paperwork can really give you the edge.

“While you do not ‘need’ a pre-approval letter from your lender in order for your offer to be accepted, I highly recommend all of my buyers present it,” says Denise Shur, a Realtor® with 1:1 Realty in San Jose, CA. In fact, “I do not look for homes with my buyers until they have a pre-approval letter from their lender. To me, it’s that important.”

What is mortgage pre-approval?

Basically, a mortgage pre-approval letter is a guarantee from a lender that it’s willing to finance your home purchase up to a certain dollar amount, based on…

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"How To Buy a Home Without a 20% Down Payment"

Realtor.com writes, "one of the first things you’ll hear when you start considering homeownership is that even with a mortgage, you’ll need a hefty chunk of change upfront. Most financial planners recommend putting down a 20% down payment.

On the current national median home price of $420,000, that comes to $84,000. And that’s serious money.

But if you don’t happen to have that kind of cash on hand, you’re not alone. Mortgage expert Bill Banfield notes that the most common barrier to homeownership isn’t being able to afford the monthly mortgage payment—it’s being able to save the down payment.

Thankfully, there are other ways to go about buying a home that doesn’t require you to put 20% down. Here’s a list of where you can find…

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"How Long Does It Take To Buy a House?"

Realtor.com writes, "how long does it take to buy a house? While estimating a timeline for homebuying will depend on many variables, real estate experts estimate that the average time required is around four months.

This timeline is important for buyers to keep in mind for a variety of reasons. Many buyers might hope to time their home purchase with when their rental lease is up. Other buyers might want to pace their house hunt so that they are settled in their new home before the start of school. Still other buyers might also be home sellers who first need to close on the sale of their old house before they can buy their next house.

In short, homebuyers might need to fit their home search into any number of time-sensitive situations, so knowing…

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"How to Get Rid of PMI: Tips to Ditch Private Mortgage Insurance Fast"

Realtor.com shares, "most people with private mortgage insurance want to know how to get rid of it. And for good reason: PMI tacks on a substantial extra fee to your already massive mortgage payments. Lenders traditionally require PMI for borrowers who put down less than 20% on a house. Of course, it’s a godsend if you couldn’t afford a home otherwise. But once you have PMI, is there any way to let it go?

For starters, let’s get one thing straight: “Mortgage insurance is neither good nor bad,” says Michael Brown, branch manager for Churchill Mortgage in Nashville, TN. “It can help people become homeowners who would not otherwise qualify because they don’t have 20% to put down. But in the long run, the removal of mortgage insurance could save home…

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"What Is an Origination Fee, and How Much Does It Cost?"

Realtor.com writes, "in the seemingly never-ending mortgage lexicon of home buying and selling, one term in particular stands out as a source of confusion: the origination fee. What is an origination fee? It’s something every homeowner needs to understand. And the good news is that it’s not actually that complicated.

In basic terms, an origination fee—sometimes referred to as a discount fee—is money that a lender or bank charges a client to complete a loan transaction. An origination fee can encompass a variety of different fees added together, says Mark Ventrone, owner and broker with ABLEnding, based in California and Arizona. It can include underwriting fees, administrative fees, processing fees, discount fees (also known as points), and any…

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"The housing market is slowing but home prices are still going up"

Austin Business Journal writes, "this year's housing market, beset by high interest rates, is on track for the lowest number of homes sold in 12 years.

Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored mortgage financing organization, projects total home sales in 2023 to be about 4.8 million, the lowest since 2011, and only slightly higher in 2024 at 4.9 million. The total amount of mortgage originations for 2023 is expected to be about $1.56 trillion, down from what Fannie Mae had originally projected to be $1.6 trillion this year.

Fannie Mae sees personal spending to be at unsustainable levels relative to American incomes and it projects a "modest economic contraction" in the first half of 2024, combined with mortgage rates hovering above 7%.

And while…

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"Austin Is The New Austin"

National Mortgage Professional writes, "there’s no such thing as a perfect housing market, but Austin is trying to check off all the boxes for would-be buyers. Young and savvy tech professionals are flocking to the funky metro known for its music scene to scoop up jobs and take the plunge into homeownership.

Since Austin is attracting new buyers and transforming long-term renters into prospective homeowners, LOs aren’t having trouble wrangling customers to buy loans. And it helps that 25.8% of homes in Austin have lower estimated monthly housing payments than they would have if they had been for sale a year ago, according to Redfin. Year-to-date home sales price data from the Austin Board of Realtors show a 12.6% decline in the median price for…

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"What a more normal Austin housing market looks like"

Austin Business Journal writes, "Austin's housing market has had a full year of "normalization," experts say, but we aren't out of the woods yet.

After years of soaring prices and diminished inventory fueled by a pandemic-era buying frenzy, home prices began falling back toward more normal levels and inventory began rising in July 2022. Market observes have framed this as a return of more normal conditions, dictated by actual supply and demand and affected by typical season fluctuations.

A year later, what does that look like? The Austin Board of Realtors this week reported that the metro had a median sales price of $462,000 last month, down 10% from a year prior and much lower than the peak of $550,000 in April and May 2022.

Inventory, which…

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