Special Offers for New Homeowners

Every time a mortgage closes, marketers line up to pitch all sorts of fabulous offers and opportunities to new homeowners. Nearly all arrive via mail so they are, fortunately, easy to sort through and discard. On occasion a company will dispatch their best door-to-door salesman to pay the buyers a visit and congratulate them on their purchase – thankfully they are few and far between. The special offer bounty covers a wide spectrum. Some is

Mortgage Rates and The Fed

This afternoon the Federal Reserve announced the next phase of their strategy to stimulate the economy. Broadly referred to as Quantitative Easing 2, the plan involves printing a whole lot of money in order to buy long-term US Treasury Bonds in the markets. The Fed’s big picture goal is to reduce unemployment, and hopes that injecting more money into the economy will encourage businesses to begin taking risks to expand their operations (hire more workers),

Courant Companion: A Refi Bonanza

Today’s front page Courant article gives another view of the refinancing opportunity. They highlight a homeowner who is moving from a 30 year to 15 year mortgage, illustrating the significant amount of interest they can save by knocking 8 years off the total term of the loan. The story provides another great example of the line of thinking and analysis we did when working through our refinancing process. And kudos to the homeowner for aspiring

Refinancing Our House- Journey Completed

Like clockwork, about 45 days after our refinancing journey started, this morning it ended. We’ve officially and successfully purchased our house for the third time. You see, we bought it in 2004, refinanced in 2005 to a lower rate and refinanced again to an even lower rate and a 15-year mortgage today. The message? We must REALLY like this place. All in all, the process was pretty painless and easy. First, we had plenty of

Buyers: Don't Forget to Have Fun

Buyer’s Week has been an exciting ride here at the Greater Hartford Real Estate Blog. We covered the current opportunity, the importance of talking to a mortgage professional, the benefits of trading up in a down market, and buying when you also have a house to sell. Fond memories… Buying a home is a process punctuated by events. We think that buyers should understand what they are getting into at the start, and hope that