Home Searches Include This Elastic Parameter

Once a home search gets underway, even prospective buyers who hadn’t hardened up the prices they were aiming for begin to hone in on a target range. Even a cursory excursion into the Portland listings forces the issue. Anyone who is at all serious about finding a new home sees the correlation between the listed asking prices and ‘how much house’ is available in that range. In most cases, lower prices denote features that are, for one reason or another, not very popular. Higher prices can mean the opposite: top-of-the-line quality… (or an overly optimistic seller).

So once a home search has narrowed the field to the Portland offerings that meet at least the minimum physical requirements, the lower number of the price range is established. If a realistic family budget shows more to spare, more expensive possibilities can be explored. But first, it’s also a good idea to make at least one revision to those budgetary assumptions, because there’s one area where the actual costs of home ownership can […]

2015-11-21T20:17:18+00:00

Bottom Line Impact of Portland Metro Area Mortgage Interest Rate Shifts

If you begin a search for a new home by going online to check out Portland Area listings, it’s likely that one of the first search criteria you enter will be the price range. After all, unless you are a virtual looky-loo who is just checking out how the other half lives, your budget will dictate which homes you seriously consider. If you are one of the more than two-thirds of us who will be counting on a loan to help finance that home purchase, the monthly payment amount is really what matters.

That’s why you don’t have to be a dedicated number-cruncher to be keenly interested in the direction Portland Metro mortgage interest rates are going to head. In fact, if you aren’t one of those whose idea of a good time includes working out spreadsheet calculations, it probably came as a shock the first time you realized how big a deal it is when mortgage interest rates notch up or down even a single percentage point. If you’ve never really dug in to look at the numbers, you might want […]

2015-09-10T17:37:49+00:00

Portland Metro Area Mortgage Rates Projected to Rise Sooner Rather than Later

imagesNow that we are deep into July, with summer in full swing, there might be vague thoughts running through your mind about some potential real estate moves—but certainly not until the fall. Right now all most of us are thinking about is whether another chilled glass of summer-something-or-other is in order. Mortgage rates and what the folks in Washington might be doing to affect them are not exactly top of mind on an idyllic July afternoon.

However, if you’ve been paying attention to any newscasts long enough to reach the economic stories they throw in toward the end of the broadcasts, you may have an inkling that conditions are about to change. And the evidence does suggest that mortgage rates in Portland and surrounding areas face a likely increase come fall. If you’re among those considering buying or selling a home in Portland this year, now should be the time to stop “thinking”and start “doing”.

Exhibit A for that proposition comes from one Michael C. Fratantoni, who happens to be the Chief Economist of […]

2015-07-20T19:14:02+00:00