The financial crisis in Europe has had the unexpected effect of pushing mortgage rates in the United States to record lows.
The average cost of a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 4.96%, and the average rate for a 15-year, fixed-rate loan dropped to 4.34% in Bankrate’s most recent survey of major lenders.
Those are the cheapest they’ve [...]

AimLoan.com is offering some of the best rates in the country on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages.
Borrowers can pay as little as 4.375% with $1,995 in fees and 1.973 discount points (which is prepaid interest, with each point equaling 1% of the amount you’re borrowing).

Many people feared that mortgages would become much more expensive when the Federal Reserve stopped buying mortgage-backed securities this spring.
But the Fed dropped out of the market March 31, and so far, mortgage rates remained near historic lows.
Our latest survey of the best rates available in 10 major cities found lenders offering 30-year, fixed-rate loans [...]

JP Morgan Chase is pushing a new gimmick to sell mortgages.

Take out a new loan — purchase or refinance — and get back 1% of each year’s total mortgage payments.
But how much will you have to pay for a Chase loan?
When we used the “custom quote” feature on the bank’s Web site, we could find [...]

Lenders are offering traditional fixed-rate mortgages for less than 5% in nine of the 10 major cities we surveyed this month.
That’s quite an improvement from July when only one of the 10 cities we looked at had those loans available for less than 5%.
It’s nearly as good as what we found in November, when average [...]

Although rates on our favorite home equity lines of credit have edged up since December, they’re still the cheapest consumer loans you can get.

If you have 30% to 40% equity in your home and good credit you should be able to find a HELOC for under 5% APR. In some areas of the country, you [...]

When you bid on a home, you usually open negotiations with a deliberately low offer.
Short sales are different.
Lenders must approve any deal that allows a home to be sold for less than what’s owed on the mortgage, and it can take weeks, sometimes months, for them to evaluate and approve (or reject) each offer.
That [...]

Lenders are offering traditional fixed-rate mortgages for less than 5% in nine of the 10 major cities we surveyed this month.

That’s quite an improvement from July when only one of the 10 cities we looked at had those loans available for less than 5%.
It’s nearly as good as what we found in November, when average [...]

Within three days of applying for a loan, you’ll get a “Good Faith Estimate” that lays out all of the terms and fees for the mortgage you want.

But are you getting the best possible deal?
On Jan. 1 the government required lenders to start using a new, standardized GFE that can help you decide.
On the last [...]