From David Streitfeld in the NY Times: Rates Are Low, but Banks Balk at Refinancing (ht Dave) First some history on mortgage rates: It is highly unusual for mortgage money to be available below 5 percent. Average rates fell as low as 4.7 percent in the 1940s, as the government…

Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, two years ago this week, and three years ago…

“For Sale” signs are sprouting up all over my neighborhood again. In fact it is hard to find a block without one or two homes for sale. This is a very high number, especially for December. My neighborhood may be unusual (fairly high priced SoCal area), but I suspect many…

In recent months gold prices have risen dramatically, first breaching the US$1000 barrier, then jumping another 20% in the past few weeks, surpassing US$1200 before correcting downward again to around US$1100. Some gold-bug bulls say the gold price could eclipse US$2000 in the next couple years. Is that possible?…

Changes are coming for Boise, Idaho FHA Mortgages. There is a lot of pressure out there in the mortgage markets. Many are referring to FHA mortgages as the new “sub prime” lending and many feel that FHA mortgages may be the next to implode.  As unlikely as this is…

Check out all the great contributions that were published during the past week on RGE’s Nouriel Roubini’s Global EconoMonitor , RGE Analyst’s EconoMonitor , Finance & Markets Monitor , Peterson Institute for International Economics Monitor , Global Macro EconoMonitor , U.S. EconoMonitor , Emerging Markets Monitor , Asia EconoMonitor…

Randy Johnson, president of Independence Mortgage Co. in Newport Beach, author of “How to Save Thousands of Dollars on Your Home Mortgage” and a mortgage broker since 1983, answers questions… Q. My wife and I are currently in a five-year, interest-only home loan that is scheduled to convert in…

From David Cho at the WaPo: Joblessness plan revamps rules on bank bailouts (ht Mr. Ridgeback goes to Washington) The Obama administration is developing a major initiative to tackle … unemployment by getting federal bailout funds into the hands of small businesses. The proposal involves spinning off a new entity…

November retail sales will be released tomorrow morning, but December is apparently off to a slow start … From the WSJ: Sales Lull Has Retailers Worried The first week of December, typically a lackluster time in the wake of Black Friday, was particularly slow. … “After solid traffic the first…

If there were 143,276 cumulative HAMP trial modifications in June – and the maximum length of a trial was extended to five months – how come there were only 31,382 permanent mods and 30,650 disqualified modifications by the end of November? What happened to the other 82,244 modifications? Have they…