21 Audubon:
3 bed 3 bath NEW home in Audubon Springs $162,264
New incentive: $4000 for closing costs plus 2% ($3265) Flex incentive. **

6657 Cottonwood Tree Drive:
3 bed 3 bath NEW home in Banning Lewis Ranch $257,938
New incentive: $5000 for closing costs plus 2% ($5159) Flex incentive. **

6658 Cottonwood Tree Drive:
2 bed 2 bath + study NEW home in Banning Lewis Ranch $217,193
New incentive: $5000 for closing costs plus 2% ($4344) Flex incentive. **

6667 Cottonwood Tree Drive:
3 bed 3 bath NEW home in Banning Lewis Ranch $239,632
New incentive: $5000 for closing costs plus 2% ($4793) Flex incentive. **

6677 Cottonwood Tree Drive:
4 bed 4 bath NEW home in Banning Lewis Ranch $272,683
New incentive: $5000 for closing costs plus 2% ($4793) Flex incentive. **

7833 Calabash:
2 bed 2 bath NEW home for sale in Forest Meadows $216,591
New Incentive: $5000 for closing costs plus 2%($4332) Flex incentive. **

*Price, incentives and availability may change. Call the Wagner iTeam for details: (719) 434-8346
** The Flex incentive can be used for upgrades or price reduction.

If you are looking to buy a home in the Colorado Springs real estate market, then you may want to consider getting a 15-year mortgage.

It’s not just 30-year fixed rate mortgages that are posting all-time lows these days. The 15-year mortgage has been plunging, too.

If you’ve ever considered a 15-year loan term, it’s a terrific time to talk to your lender. According to Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage rate survey of roughly 125 U.S. lenders, at 3.30 percent, the 15-year fixed rate mortgage is at its lowest point in history.

The 3.30% rate doesn’t come for free, however. Based on average loan term nationwide, borrowers choosing to “go 15″ should expect to pay 0.6 discount points at closing. 1 discount point is equal to 1 percent of your loan size.

With low rates, 15-year fixed rate mortgage can be enticing; a primary benefit is the huge reduction in the long-term interest costs of your loan. The downside, though, is that monthly mortgage payments can be relatively large.

At today’s mortgage rates, a 15-year fixed rate loan carries a principal + interest payment of $705.10 per $100,000 borrowed — a 46% increase over a comparable 30-year fixed rate loan. If you can manage the bigger payments, though, you’ll reap $47,000 in interest payments savings per $100,000 borrowed in paying off your loan in full.

$47,000 per $100,000 borrowed is a huge amount of savings and those saved monies can be used to fund items such as college, home improvement, and retirement, among others.

That said, the 15-year fixed rate mortgage is not for everyone.

Because it comes with higher monthly payments, the 15-year fixed rate mortgage may add financial stress to your household budget. And, once you have committed to a 15-year loan term and its payments, you’re can’t “go back”. Your lender won’t revert your loan to a 30-year schedule without a refinance, and a refinance could be costly.

• August 2011 real estate search results are in and Colorado Springs, CO was the #50 most searched market in the country in August 2011, based on data released today by Realtor.com.
• Median list prices for homes in Colorado Springs, CO hit $222,000 in August 2011, a 4.59% increase from one year ago this month, and 0.46% increase from July 2011.
  The national median list price in August 2011 was$189,900, a 0.48% increase compared to August 2010.
• Active for sale inventory of homes in Colorado Springs, CO in August 2011 leveled out at 4,867, a -21.45% decrease compared to August 2010.
  National inventory counts for August 2011 were 2,267,327, a -19.00% decrease as compared to a year ago.
• The median age of inventory in Colorado Springs, CO in August was 86 days, a 2.38% increase compared to July 2011.
  Nationally, the median age of inventory was 103 days, a 6.19% increase compared to July.

For details on all 146 MSAs monitored by Realtor.com in August 2011, click here: http://www.realtor.com/data-portal/Real-Estate-Statistics.aspx

Comments:

Colorado Springs saw a significant rise in home sale prices and decrease in inventory over the past year. I attribute this to the low interest rates, allowing more home buyers to qualify for a mortgage.

For more information on buying a home in the Colorado Springs real estate market,
please contact the Wagner iTeam at (719) 434-8346

Getting an FHA loan is a popular option when buying a home in the Colorado Springs real estate market.

‘The FHA is insuring a greater percentage of loans than during any time in recent history. In 2006, it insured roughly 5 percent of the purchase mortgage market. Today, it insures one-quarter. ”Going FHA” is more common than ever before — but is it better?

The answer — like most things in mortgage — depends on your circumstance.

Like its conforming counterpart, an FHA-insured mortgage is available as a fixed-rate loan and as an adjustable-rate one. Payments are made monthly and come without prepayment penalties.

That’s where the similarities end, however, and decision-making begins. For homeowners and buyers , FHA mortgages carry a different set rules as compared to conforming loans through Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac that can render them more — or less — attractive for financing.

For example:

• FHA mortgages can be assumed by a subsequent buyer. Conforming loans may not.
• FHA mortgages require mortgage insurance, regardless of down payment. Conforming loans do not.
• FHA mortgages do not have loan-level pricing adjustment. Conforming loans do.

FHA mortgages also require smaller down payment requirements versus a comparable conforming mortgage. FHA calls for a minimum downpayment of 3.5%. Conforming mortgages often require 5 percent or more.

And, lastly, FHA mortgages are priced differently from conforming ones. Since 2005, the average FHA mortgage rate has been below the average conforming mortgage rate more than 50% of the time, meaning that an FHA mortgage’s principal + interest payment is lower than a comparable Fannie/Freddie loan.

Today, conforming mortgage rates are lower.

So, which is better — FHA loans or conforming ones? Like most things in mortgage, it depends. FHA-insured loans can be big money-savers or money-wasters. To find out which is best for you, ask your loan officer for today’s market interest rates and study the results.

With less than 20% equity, the answer is often clear.

For more information on applying for a conventional or FHA loan,
please contact Dan Green: dan.green@waterstonemortgage.com

For more information on buying a home in the Colorado Springs real estate market,
please contact the Wagner iTeam (719) 434-8346

More commonly called APR, Annual Percentage Rate is a government-mandated mortgage comparison tool. It measures the total cost of borrowing over the life of a loan into dollars-and-cents.

A loan’s APR is printed in the top-left corner of the Federal Truth-In-Lending Disclosure, as shown above. When quoting an interest rate, loan officers are required by law to disclose a loan’s APR, too.

APR is meant to simplify the process of choosing between two or more loans. The theory is that the loan with the lowest APR is the “best deal” for the applicant because the loan’s long-term costs are lowest. However, the loan with the lowest APR isn’t always best.

APR makes assumptions in its formula that can render it moot.

First, APR assumes you’ll pay your mortgage off at term, at never sooner. So, if your loan is a 15-year fixed rate, its APR is based on a full 15 year term. If you sell or refinance prior to Year 15, the math used to make your loan’s APR becomes instantly flawed and “wrong”.

Example: Let’s compare two identical loans — one with discount points and a lower interest rate; and one without discount points and a higher mortgage rate. The loan with discount points will have a lower APR in most cases. However, if the homeowner sells or refinances within the first few years, the loan with the higher APR would have been the better option, in hindsight.

Second, APR can be “doctored” early in the loan process.

Because the APR formula accounts for third-party costs in a mortgage transaction, and third-party costs aren’t always known at the start of a loan, a bank can inadvertently understate them. This would make the APR appear lower than what it really is, and may mislead a consumer.

And, lastly, APR is particularly unhelpful for adjustable-rate loans. Because the APR calculation makes assumptions about how a loan will adjust during its 30-year term, if two lenders use a different set of assumptions, their APRs will differ — even if the loans are identical in every other way. The lender whose adjustments are most aggressively-low will present the lowest APR.

Summarized, APR is not the metric for comparing mortgages — it’s a metric. For relevant comparison points, talk to Dan Green at dan.green [at] waterstonemortgage [dot] com

For more information on buying a home for sale in Colorado Springs,
please contact the Wagner iTeam: 719.434.8346