Rates on 30 years mortgages remain above 6%
05/08/2008
Though down slightly from a week ago, mortgage rates remained above 6% for the 3rd consecutive week according to Freddie Mac. The Mortgage giant reported that 30 year mortgages average 6.05% this week, down .01% from last.
New Home Sales Drop, State Guide Update For Mortgage Brokers
04/24/2008
More bad news for mortgage brokers and bankers as The Commerce Department reported today that new homes sales dropped 8.5% last month, representing the lowest level (slowest pace) in over 16 years. On top of this came news that the median price of new home sales dropped by the largest amount in almost 4 decades, the [...]
Contract bonds are often incorrectly referred to as construction bonds. There are several categories of contract bonds (for example, payment bonds, performance bonds, or subdivision bonds), all of which are three-party agreements between the contract principle, owner as oblige, and the surety.
The Contract bond market is on that written in a very conservative manner. In the late 1990's, the surety industry as a whole was writing bonds very liberally, accepting those who were under qualified, or with poor credit histories. This period of time hit the bonding companies hard with record loses, forcing several companies to close their doors. At the turn of the century, those surviving companies reevaluated their underwriting practices and "firmed them up". As a result there are no specialty markets for bad credit contract bonds.
In order to streamline the approval process, contract bonds under $200,000 are approved solely on credit reports of the individual or company.
