First Central Mortgage Funding: Mortgage News

Home buyers may soon win more time to get to the closing table to qualify for a federal home-buyer tax credit of up to $8,000.

If you're ready to raise your credit score, you may need to make some unexpected personal-finance moves. For instance, you may want to delay paying down that credit-card balance.

Upfront fees on reverse mortgages have fallen substantially in recent months, giving homeowners interested in this product a new challenge: how to best compare offers to find the best one.

The housing-market crisis has had one positive outcome: Homes are more affordable, now that prices and mortgage rates are lower, and some buyers can claim a tax credit worth up to $8,000.

Nestled within the massive financial-reform package that a House-Senate panel approved early Friday morning are consumer protections that could change the way people shop for a mortgage.

A low appraisal can kill a home sale, especially in this difficult real-estate market.

“Strategic defaults” are on the rise as more borrowers who are underwater on their home loans decide it’s not worth it to stay current on their payments each month. That trend could have repercussions for the housing market, and for borrowers, in the future.

The global recession had largely muzzled inflation's bite, but actions being taken to cure the developed world’s economic ills could revive threats to bond investors and savers and spoil many Americans’ retirement plans.

Can reserve funds be used for other than what they are intended? Yes and no.

A happy consequence of this Great Recession is that Americans are widely expected to be better consumers.

For Mother’s Day, flowers and chocolate are nice, but watching your single daughter take the lead in the real-estate market may be even nicer.

Home builders aren't allowed to require the use of an affiliated mortgage company as a condition of the sale, but they can offer consumers incentives in order to encourage them to use that affiliate.

Supported by a tax credit, the pending home sales index rose a seasonally adjusted 5.3% in March, and was up 21.1% compared with a year earlier, the National Association of Realtors says.

Boosted by a federal subsidy to buyers, resales of existing homes rise 6.8% in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.35 million from a downwardly revised 5.01 million in February, a real estate trade group reports.

Concerns about being hit with an unaffordable rate jump on an interest-only, adjustable-rate mortgage are justified -- especially when the borrower doesn't plan on selling the house for some time.

With all the talk about negative equity, the next logical question is: “How long will this last?”

The number of American households dropped by an estimated 1.2 million between 2005 and 2008, even though the population increased by 3.4 million in 80 of the largest metropolitan areas during that time, according to a new study by a professor at the University of Southern California.

New, relatively low-tech and low-cost products can help you reduce your home energy expenses without shelling out for major renovations.

The federal government is doling out as much as $8,000 to people who bought a home recently. Sounds simple, right? But collecting on that money isn’t proving to be all that straightforward for some taxpayers.

A tax credit of up to $8,000 was a big incentive for first-time buyers to buy a house over the last couple of years, but a slew of other tax advantages will keep rewarding those new homeowners long after that money hits their bank accounts.