Aloha Friday,

Real Estate interest rates have finally stabilized a touch. Thank goodness. I have received several phone calls this week asking if I believe real estate interest rates would go back down. The real answer to that is if I knew for sure, I would be a billionaire many times over. But, in my 23 years of watching rates I have found that any moves, down or up, that go that quickly, usually will settle back to a more realistic range. My prediction is rates in the 5 to 5.25% range within a few weeks for conforming rates.

I am including a website that you may find very helpful. This site can help you to determine if a condominium is FHA approved:

https://entp.hud.gov/idapp/html/condlook.cfm

Please note that if a project is not approved, we can often times still get a spot approval. If the project has been withdrawn, we must get the project reapproved through HUD to complete an FHA loan in that tract.

Our jumbo product is FANTASTIC and we can still go 80% to $2 million and 75% to $3 million on prime borrowers. The rate is at 5.125% and the borrower can have principal and interest or interest only payments.

Time frames for purchases are now back at 30 days or under except for the jumbo loan product which still needs 45 days due to the demand of our great rates.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend planned. Let us know if we can help in any way. I will be on the island of Maui in Lahaina, Hi all this week.
 

-Dean Rathbun