With mortgage rates are hovering near all-time lows, lots of Americans are taking advantage of refinance and home buying opportunities.

The downside of today”s unexpectedly-low rates, though, is that mortgage lenders are ill-equipped for the rush of new business.

As a result, the process of underwriting and approving new mortgage applications is taking [...]

If you”re in want of a cash out refinance, the most liberal cash-out program in town is about to make qualification more difficult.

Effective April 1, 2009, the FHA is reducing the maximum loan-to-value on cash-out refinances by 10 percent, dropping the loan size limit from 95% of the home”s value to 85%.

In [...]

Don”t look now but oil prices are climbing.

This should worry today”s home buyers and would-be refinancers because some of the same forces that helped to push crude past $50 for the first time in 4 months also cause mortgage rates to rise.

March 18, the Federal Reserve committed [...]

Mortgage markets scored big gains last week, sparked by the Federal Reserve”s pledge to buy $750 billion more mortgage-backed bonds in 2009.

Conforming mortgage rates fell on the week, overall.

But Federal Reserve intervention wasn”t the only good news for rate shoppers last week. New evidence showed — for the time being, at least [...]

The Federal Open Market Committee voted to leave the Fed Funds Rate unchanged today, within the target range of 0.000-0.250 percent. This doesn”t mean the Fed stood pat, however.

On plan to resurrect the economy using “all available tools”, today, the Fed announced a new, $1.5 trillion round of fiscal support for the treasury [...]