The Bank of Canada has stated that they intend to keep the variable rate low till mid 2010. This means you will have below 2% rate for another 6 months minimum. It is hard to make that jump to the fixed rates but the lowest 5 yr terms ever are available today, they may not be available by 2010. This is a personal choice, some risk is involved in waiting till 2010 but a below 2% rate is a great place to be right now. Sorry I cant be of more help! Dave....

Today the 5yr rate is still way below the average interest rate of 5.5%. Anytime you lock a mortgage in at lower rate than that you cant lose. The variable is unstable it can climb at any time and then if you want to lock you are at the mercy of the 5yr mortgage rate at that time. Unless you keep a close eye on rates and follow them, you should lock it in. If you do follow the rates then make sure you dont wait too long, they already started to rise.

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When signing the following documents is the borrower binded to the contracts or it open for negotiation? for example, when do i officially accpet the mortgage rate? uniform residential loan application,mortgage brokerage fee agreement,good faith estimate, federal truth-in-lending disclosure statement, notice to the home loan applicant credit score information disclosure, mortgage loan origination agreement. also, can i lock a rate on a sunday?

What you have done so far is apply for a loan. With the documents you have signed a lender or a mortgage broker can get your loan underwritten. The transaction can still be negotiated at this point in the process Your Good Faith Estimate (GFE) will give you the approximate cost of the loan, the Truth In Lending (TIL) will give you the over all cost of the interest the loan will cost you as well as the monthly payments. The other disclosures are required by either the federal or your state government. You should be given a copy of each of the documents you have signed, especially the GFE and the TIL. If anything changes in your loan, within 3 days of the change and depending on what is changed you should be given another GFE and/or TIL. Now once your loan has been underwritten and you have an approval, you may lock the rate but Sunday is not a business day so you will have to do that on a normal business day. The loan may be locked for periods of 15 days, 30 days, 60 days and in some cases 90 days. The shorter times are more common for a lock. Now once your approval is given you should sit down with your mortgage broker or lender and go over the details of the approval. If you are pleased with the approval as far as interest rate, monthly payments and the terms (Number of years in which you have to pay the loan off) Your approval will also tell you if you have an adjustable loan and when the adjustment will occcur. Your approval will normally have a few things required before final approval is issued, things like an appraisal, perhaps a few more paystubs, and something that the underwritter might need. Your mortgage broker might be required to do something and escrow might be required to make an amendment. You and your mortgage broker should get these items done as soon as possible, after which your final approval is issued with a date that you may request your loan docs that you will be required to sign. Once these conditions have been met, you may now lock your loan for the interest rate you have agreed on as well as the terms. Now if you agree with the final approval, your mortgage broker or lender will then order your loan docs. The loan docs should reflect exactly what your approval said as far as the terms, loan amount, interest rate and if you have an adjustable rate mortgage or not. Upon receiving the loan docs you and the mortgage broker will set an appointment for your signing either with a doc signer or the escrow closing agent, that are authorized to notorize docs in your state. After you have signed your loan docs you have now got a binding contract with the lender that is putting up the funds for you to purchase your home. Your lender has agreed to lend you the funds under the terms and conditions out lined in the loan docs and you have agreed to pay the mortgage under the terms and conditions as outlined in the loan docs. I hope this has been of some use to you, good luck. "FIGHT ON"

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I have a fully-open vrm at prime (currently 2.5%). in view of the potential for increasing inflation in the future, should i lock in at current low rates or wait a bit and see what happens? if waiting is the answer, when should i lock in?

The variable rate you are in is great. To me anything below 4% right now on a mortgage is like Free money. You have to watch what Prime is doing. The Bank of Canada meets again in a couple of weeks. They are predicting another 1/4 point cut. If that happens you are going to be at 2.25%. Check with your lender as most lenders allow you to lock into a 5 year term at the best rate. Be careful that it is not at their posted rate. Posted rates tend to be sometimes 1.25% higher than their best rate. Ask and if they are telling you a 5 year rate of anything higher than 4.25% you should look elsewhere. Since you are in a Fully-Open VRM to get out of it there might be a small discharge fee of perhaps $300 or so. If you are locking into a 5 year term you should be able to get a rate of 4% or less in some cases. This again would depend on your credit score, job stability and value of your home. I would stay in the variable but watch the rate and when you are ready to lock in for something shop around to get the best rate. Your bank may be giving you a good rate but if you call a mortgage broker they may be able to get you a better rate. Good luck, Victor

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Where can i get these? i'm looking in particular for the short-rate. i tried option chains on "irx", but there's no open interest. i know it's a vastly liquid market but i can't find it!!!! the point is i want to see the probability distribution on 10 year maturities to see how much of a rip-off locking in on a 10y mortgage rate is thanks, .

What you have found, with IRX, are 13-Week Treasury Bill interest rate options traded on the CBOE. The CBOE also trades options on other interest rates, specifically 5-Year Treasury Note - FVX 10-Year Treasury Note - TNX 30-Year Treasury Bond - TYX For more information on these products, see http://www.cboe.com/Products/InterestRateOptionsSpecs.aspx As well as options on interest rates, there are also interest rate futures, options on interest rate futures, Eurodollar Calendar Spread Options, Intercommodity Spreads, Swap Futures and Options and Interest Rate Index Futures. To get delayed quotes on these products, go to http://www.cmegroup.com/ and mouse over "Interest Rate Products" under "Products" at the top of the list at the left of the screen, then click on the product. I do not know enough about these products to give you any hints about the best ways to use them. All I am doing is trying to help you find the raw data. What you do with them once you have found them is up to you.

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We bought a 25 year old house in may in ma. we had a general contractor do some work (roof, windows, siding, floors, kitchen cabinets). he got 2 permits for that work which he says are "closed". in the process of converting our mortgage, the building dept just realized the original owners never completed all their inspections on their building permit (1985), and there is no occupancy permit for this house. they did do some (foundation / insulation / frame / plumbing). bldg dept found documents "in the back of the file". these show the original owners had gotten 3 letters telling them they were in violation of ma state law (1988, 90, 91). the dept must have forgotten about it, since with no occupancy permit our contractor shouldn't have been able to get permits. since they say we are now in violation of ma state law, i paid the fee and we'll get all the inspections. now i'm worried there will be costly code violations! the general contractor (and others) have noticed things that were done 'differently'. it looks like the owners might have really done alot of the work themselves. knowing someone that had been an electrician, he's pointed out some things that wouldn't pass 85 code. for example wiring in the basement goes across beams not along them. also the general said the deck is too high and code will require a railing. these were all from the original owners (previous owners only here 3 years, and all they did was install a sump pump and french drains). these things dont seem dangerous so i dont want to pay to fix them. but i'm afraid they'll find these and other things and it will be costly to fix everything. we already went way over our budget for repairs! the inspector we hired didn't notice the plywood under all the sideing was rotted (due to original incorrect installation of tyvek / siding / gutters). so legally, am i responsible for anything they find that hadn't been done to code? i don't understand why the building dept is acting irritated with me - i didn't do anything, and i'm trying to now resolve the problem. it seems like it was their errors that got me into this mess. in case things get expensive, is there any way the original owners are responsible for this? or are we just stuck paying to fix anything they did wrong? note 1: before anyone says "it's your responsibility to ensure a house has an occupancy permit". how would we have done this? the bldg dept was asked if there were open permits and they said no. note 2: we did hire someone to inspect the property prior to purchase. they found many things, but not all. we realized there was a lot of damage to be repaired. we didn't know the wiring wasn't done to code or the deck was too high. note 3: there are no problems yet, but i want to be somewhat prepared and know what to do. this has already caused me to lost my mortgage rate lock, and delay our mortgage conversion. i'll need to resolve this quickly to get the mortgage settled. i realize there is risk when you buy a house. i thought we'd already paid for that with the new siding and fixing tons of rot. but when other people actually violated the law, do we need to pay for that too? thanks for any information we did do the inspection. legally the house required an occupancy permit for 25 years. the bldg dept was aware of this (from notices) but ignored it. they were asked for open permits and incorrectly stated there were none. now i must legally do what original owner had to. the question was asked (open permits) and bldg inspection office missed the info "in back of file". who else would we ask? it is in writing (the "no open permits") only in the bank-assessors report. i could ask if they got it in writing, but i doubt it. most likely a phone call. and really - who do you know who has ever asked to get in writing "no open permits" prior to the purchase of a home. nothing was done "on the cheap". we've put 95k into the house already. we didn't try to save money with a cheap inspection prior to purchase. the house was in need of repairs and wanted to try to know what we were getting into. fully accepted responsibility for the missed rot, etc. an inspector is bound to miss something - and this required ripping off siding to discover. but being responsible for others having broken the law, seems unfair. we have every intention of obeying the law (unlike original owners who were state police officers). any violations will be fixed - i just fear the price of these. our budget is already way over.

You are responsible, as the present owner, for ensuring you comply with building codes. However, there are two things to keep in mind. First, you are only responsible for making sure the previous work meets the building codes that were in place at the time the permits were taken out (that is, in 1985). Don't get suckered into bringing your whole house up to date. Second, you probably have recourse against the sellers, if you can find them. If we are talking about a few hundred dollars, it probably isn't worth pursuing. But if we are talking about several thousand dollars, you may want to see if you can track down the former owners and sue them. EDIT: On second thought, if we are talking about considerable money, I'd sue everybody in one big law suit. I'd sue all of the previous owners, back to the original one who did the work. I'd also sue the permitting authority for allowing the non-compliance to go unabated for 25 years. Your hope is to either get the money to bring the house into compliance from the original owner, or to get a court order compelling the issuance of an occupancy permit from the county/state.

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I paid my way through college with an army scholarship, and then enhanced my grad school stipend by working as a bouncer. i have an ms in chemical engineering. i waited until i was 30 to get married, and i have no kids. basically i've sacrificed and delayed fufillment so that i could get a good job, good medical benefits, good car, retirement plan, save up a down payment for my house, and get locked in with a 30 year fixed rate mortgage at 6.125%. then i open the paper (figuratively, since i get my news off the internet) and the headlines are all screaming about universal healthcare, subprime lending bailouts, corporate welfare, and nation building. and guess who gets to pay for all that government spending to ease the pain of bad choices? so i get mad, vote libertarian, and they get trounced because both big parties are buying people's votes with their own money. is anyone else feeling discouraged and unmotivated to succeed? supporting morons isn't why i went to school.

My story is exactly the same except for the profession, it's hard not to feel crapped on. Thank you for having the motivation to better yourself, we need more of us.

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Objectives bring my good attitude, organization skills, work experience and knowledge as well as my determination to grow with a company. experience 2006

For starters...it's way too long!!!!! Definitely change your objective....especially the part where it says "to grow with a company." It sounds kind of like something a teenager would say in their resume (please don't take offense, you asked for help). Say something like....... "Seeking a position where I can apply my experience and knowledge toward the growth and success of the company." Or "Looking to use my experience and knowledge to help in the growth and success of the company." Of course, those are generic, but something along those lines sounds much more professional than what you have listed above. Also, I think a big downfall on your resume will be the number of jobs you have listed and the fact that you only stay with companies for a year or less (I think there was one company on there with two years) This does not look good at all. A hiring manager will look at that right away and know something is not right. They will also avoid hiring you for fear that you may only stay with their company for less than a year. And, in reality, it's a huge waste of time and money for companies to train you, pay you, and possibly have you leave soon after. If I were you, I would only list your three most recent jobs. If you get an interview, you can always mention your oldest jobs then....but only if they ask! And, remember, a resume should be kept to one page!!! One page and half of another one is still ok, but remember....the shorter the better. Work on some things and post this resume again. We'll let you know how it looks. But from someone who hires people on a daily basis, I would really redo this resume before turning it in.....Honestly, I would not even give you an interview if you turned this in to my company. Hope this helps!