As we get closer to Labor Day, volume on Wall Street is dwindling as market players get a head start on their long weekend.

Today could be a difficult day to shop for mortgage rates and that can impact home affordabilility.

Expect volatility.

This is because mortgage rates are based on the price of [...]

Three years to the week after Hurricane Katrina caused $81.2 million in damages, Tropical Storm Gustav is charting a similar Gulf of Mexico path.

Memories of Katrina are making oil traders nervous. The 2005 storm shut down 30 platforms and 9 refineries. And, this week, oil prices are up nearly 4 percent [...]

According to the June 2008 Case-Shiller Home Price Index, home prices in 15 of the 20 largest U.S. real estate markets either improved, or showed growth from the month prior.

This is the fourth straight month in which that happened which means that a national housing recovery may already be underway.

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When a homeowner buys a new home, he has 3 options of what to do with his current residence:

Sell the home, paying off the mortgage in full Keep the home as a second/vacation home Convert the home to an investment property

The most common action plan is the first one — sell the home [...]

As compact fluorescent bulbs gain favor across the country, it’s important to remember that they contain mercury and mercury is harmful to humans.

Because even though CFLs contain small amounts of mercury — less than 4 milligrams per bulb — it’s still enough mercury to cause brain damage.

If you’re interested, this 4-minute video from [...]

Stories on TV about the national real estate market are misleading to Americans.

This is because there is no such thing as a “national real estate market”.

Consider the latest American Housing Survey. It found that there are 124,377,000 homes in America spread across:

50 states, with More than 30,000 incorporated [...]

Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) is an insurance policy paid to a lender in the event that a homeowner defaults on his home loan.

With the growing number of mortgage defaults nationwide, mortgage insurers are finding their balance sheets under attack and their revenues in the red.

So far this year, mortgage [...]

The Producer Price Index is a business inflation meter and it’s now up 9.8 percent annually.

This is a huge number for PPI and represents the highest year-over-year rate of inflation since 1981.

Normally, blowout inflation like this would be terrible for mortgage rates but mortgage markets are actually improved since Tuesday’s [...]

Housing Starts measure the number of new housing “units” on which construction has started and in July, Housing Starts fell to its lowest levels since March 1991.

For homeowners, this is a welcome bit of good news because as fewer homes are built, there is less inventory from which home buyers can [...]

Home staging is the art/science of preparing a residence for sale. It includes combines elements of lighting and color, use of space, and emotional triggers to help make a home appear “more desirable” to a potential buyer.

In this 5-minute video from the NBC Today Show, real estate expert Barbara Corcoran [...]