Mortgage & Commercial Lending News.

At AMI Lenders, we believe 2022 is still a good time, especially for first-time buyers, to get a mortgage and purchase a lovely house for you and your family. Interest rates are still attractive compared to previous decades, and house price increases have slowed since the recent pandemic. Finally, buying a house with a fixed-rate mortgage is still a good hedge against inflation's effects.

Our outlook on real estate and life is usually quite positive at AMI Lenders. That's why our blog is choc-full-of upbeat advice on what to do and think about when you're evaluating purchasing a house or investing in real estate—always looking optimistically towards the future. But we noticed lately that we barely touch upon themes about your mortgage or hard-money loan once you have received the money. We expect our clients to meet all their obligations on time, but that is not always the case. As such, we thought it would be a good idea to touch on some thorny issues that can happen when things don't go our client's way. Hopefully, they will never materialize for you, our faithful reader.

Many of our clients tell us during their mortgage application process that they spent significant time being uncertain about ─sometimes even agonizing over what would be the right decision: owning or renting. Since we are in the business of helping our clients own a house at AMI Lenders, we thought it might be helpful to put down in black and white what we know to be relevant factors to ponder while navigating this rent vs. own decision process.

The US economy is facing complicated macroeconomic forces. Amid the highest inflation levels seen in the past 45 years, on June 15, 2022, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 75 basis points (bps) after years of holding interest rates low and steady. This decision will increase the Fed’s benchmark federal-funds rate to a range between 1.5% and 1.75%. Most economists believe the Fed intends to raise interest rates by at least 75 bps in July and 75 bps in September. These increases will lead to the highest interest rates we’ve seen in many years. Therefore, home mortgage rates have seen increases and are due to continue to rise during the second semester of 2022.

At least for a decade now, a thought movement goes by the acronym FIRE, which means "Financial Independence, Retire Early." One of its most famous exponents, Mr. Money Moustache, writes a lively, witty, iconoclastic, and interesting blog http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/on living frugally off passive income while enjoying life and protecting the planet. (www.mrmoneymustache.com)

A lot has been written lately about the future of mortgage rates and housing prices. Let's look at some data and figure out what it means for Real Estate Investors in Houston, particularly Fix and Flip or rental property investments.

Mortgage rates are increasing

Earlier in 2022, some industry experts put forth their forecasts as to the future of mortgage rates:

• Mortgage Bankers Association forecasted the average 30-year fixed to climb up to 4% by year's end.
• Fannie Mae predicted a 3.3% mortgage rate by the end of 2022.

After you have gone through all the trouble of finding, purchasing, and rehabbing a property, the last step is to try to sell it fast and for a profit. Most people think, incorrectly, that very little planning goes into selling a property. Here are some recommendations to help you sell your fixed and flipped property:

We present to you the third of a series of articles about Fix and Flip ("F&F") as a real estate investment strategy. In the first article, we offered our readers some pointers on finding an Fix and Flip property at a discount. This was followed by an article on what to do to get financing fast before someone else does. In this one, we will develop some ideas on how to proceed carefully with repairs.

We recently published an article explaining in less than 1,000 words "how to find a property at a discount". Given the interest expressed by our readers, in this article, we expand on the topic of how to be ready to finance a Fix & Flip property fast.