SEATTLE, March 16 /PRNewswire/ — The 30-year fixed mortgage rate on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace is currently 4.78 percent, up two basis points from 4.76 percent compared to this same time last week. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose and fell the past week with a Monday spike to 4.85 percent.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060503/ZILLOWLOGO)
Zillow’s real-time mortgage rates are based on thousands of custom mortgage quotes submitted daily to anonymous borrowers through the site, and reflect the most recent changes in the market. These are not marketing rates, or a weekly survey.
The rate for 15-year fixed home loans is currently 4.22 percent, while the rate for 5-1 adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM) is 3.52 percent.
The total volume of mortgage requests in the past week was down 4 percent from the prior week. Of last week’s requests, 32 percent were for refinance loans, 66 percent were for purchase loans and 2 percent were for home equity loans. This mix was unchanged from the prior week.
Below are current rates for 30-year fixed mortgages by state. Additional states’ rates are available at: www.zillow.com/Mortgage_Rates.

State Current 30-Year Fixed Rate (3/16/10) Last week’s 30-Year Fixed Rate (3/9/10) Change in Basis Points
California Mortgage Rates
4.71% 4.79% -8
Colorado Mortgage Rates
4.81% 4.85% -4
Florida Mortgage Rates
4.80% 4.88% -8
Illinois Mortgage Rates
4.82% 4.92% -10
Massachusetts Mortgage Rates
4.85% 4.87% -2
New Jersey Mortgage Rates
4.79% 4.79% 0
New York Mortgage Rates
4.80% 4.86% -6
Pennsylvania Mortgage Rates
4.86% 4.96% -10
Texas Mortgage Rates
5.02% 4.79% +23
Washington Mortgage Rates
4.81% 4.80% +1

About Zillow Mortgage Marketplace
Zillow Mortgage Marketplace is a free, open, and transparent lending marketplace, where borrowers connect with lenders to find loans and get the best mortgage rates. Borrowers anonymously submit loan requests and receive an unlimited number of custom mortgage quotes with real rates directly from thousands of competing lenders. Zillow Mortgage Marketplace also provides mortgage calculators, mortgage advice, mortgage widgets, and lender directories.
Zillow is a registered trademark of Zillow, Inc.

Effective December 18, 2009, Harris County Toll Road Authority offers a discounted toll program to Disabled Veterans and Purple Heart recipients, as well as recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The measure was approved by Harris County Commissioners Court on Sept. 29, 2009. The Toll Road Authority developed the program pursuant to the recently enacted state law which allows tolling agencies to grant discounted tolls to specified veterans. To learn more about the program, check out the Veteran Discount Tolling Program Frequently Asked Questions at www.hctra.org.

COLLEGE STATION (Real Estate Center) – Chief Economist Dr. Mark Dotzour is crisscrossing the nation delivering his economic message and collecting valuable data for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.
Among the comments he heard this week at meetings of the National Association of Business Economics in Washington, D.C., were:
• “Clearly there is virtually no threat of inflation in the next two years.”
• “There’s virtually no chance of the Fed increasing interest rates (maybe a symbolic small move aside).”
• “The last recession, the Fed waited until unemployment was 5.5 percent before tightening.”
• “We won’t get to that level for several years.”
• “The threat is for deflation across the globe, with the exception of China.”
• “China’s money supply is up 30 percent from last year. Our M3 (the Fed’s measure of the money supply) is virtually unchanged from a year ago, and available credit is less than last year.”
“The Congressional Budget Office said the United States is going to be unable to pay for the social contract with America,” said Dotzour. “It’s only a matter of when and how the adjustments for failed promises have to take place. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security cannot be funded at current levels of spending.”

The Spring Lakes HOA will hold the annual neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt on April 3rd at 10 a.m. Don’t forget the egg basket and your camera. The Easter Bunny will be hopping by! If your children will be participating, please provide 12 candy filled eggs per child by March 31st to 506 Spring Lakes Haven. If you are currently a Spring Lakes resident I look forward to seeing you there! If you’d like to become a Spring Lakes resident, you can visit BuySpringLakes.com .

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If your income and savings are making home buying a challenge, consider these options…

1. Investigate local, state, and national down payment assistance programs. These programs give loans or grants to cover all or part of your required down payment. National programs include the Nehemiah program ( http://www.getdownpayment.com ) and the American Dream Down Payment Fund from the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development ( http://www.hud.gov ).
2. Get the seller to provide financing. In some cases, sellers may be willing to finance all or part of the purchase price of the home and let you repay them gradually, just as you do a mortgage.
3. Consider a shared-appreciation, or shared equity, arrangement. Under this arrangement, your family, friends, or even a 3rd party may buy a portion of the home and thus share in any appreciation when the home is sold. The owner/occupant usually pays the mortgage, property taxes, and all maintenance costs, but all investors’ names are usually on the mortgage. There are companies that can help you find such an investor if your family can’t participate.
4. Get help from your family. Perhaps a family member will loan you money for the down payments and/or act as a cosigner for the mortgage. Lenders often like to have a cosigner if you have little credit history.
5. See if you can qualify for a short-term 2nd mortgage to give you the money to make a higher down payment. This may be possible if you have a good income and little other debt.

Reprinted from Realtor Magazine Online by permission of the National Association of Realtors, Copyright 2005, All rights reserved.

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