Mortgage News Roundup - Don't Rake Your Leaves

Good news if you’re looking into getting a mortgage. Interest rates for 30-year fixed mortgages fell this week, with the current rate borrowers were quoted on Zillow Mortgages at 3.96 percent, down from 4.08 percent at this same time last week.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate spiked to 4.30 percent on Wednesday, then hovered around 4.06 percent for most of the week before falling to the current rate.

The other good news is that while home prices are still increasing, the rate of increase has slowed down helping to improve affordability for would-be buyers.

Prices rose 6.4 percent in August compared with a year ago, Real estate data provider CoreLogic said Tuesday. That marks a decline from an annual gain of 6.8 percent in July. Home prices had been rising as much as 12 percent yearly toward the end of last year.

Prices rose 0.3 percent in August from July. But CoreLogic’s monthly figures aren’t adjusted for seasonality, such as buying that occurs in warm weather.

If you have any questions, contact an experienced loan officer. They will be happy to discuss your financial situation, and identify a plan for finding you a mortgage.

Don’t Rake Your Leaves

Yes, believe it or not, you don’t need to rake your leaves. Raking leaves wastes your energy and your community’s, which spends lots of tax dollars collecting and disposing of leaves each fall.

Instead of raking, U.S. communities are asking residents to mulch leaves in place. Mulching is easy. You can run the regular lawnmower over the leaves a few times or look into a special mulching mower. Once the leaves are pulverized, they’ll decompose, sink into and nourish your lawn.

Homeowners also can collect the shredded leaves in mower grass catchers, then scatter them around trees and flower beds as mulch, or add them to their compost pile.

Mulching also reduces the amount of water you need to use when watering your plants thus saving you money as well.

New financing deals are making solar more affordable for homeowners

Have you been thinking about switching to solar panels for your electricity?

A new financing offering could make home solar cheaper and more attractive to homeowners, and keep the adoption of home solar growing.

The offer, announced by SolarCity this week, is a loan that allows homeowners to install their own solar system on their roof for little or no money down, and pay less for electricity. Previous plans, while popular, turned off some because the solar company owned the system.

For the deals to work, your roof can’t be shrouded in shade and you have to be paying a relatively high price for power.

Your state also has to allow you to trade the solar power you generate but don’t use for the power you need at night or when the sun isn’t shining.

Have you been looking into switching?