AFTER looking at several houses to buy in Windhoek, we finally found “The One”, a townhouse in the Oryx Grove Complex (Olympia). We found it with the help of Glenda, a property agent of Greendoor Properties. We liked the house so much that the day after seeing it for the first time, we met at the complex and discussed our 100% interest in purchasing the unit with the owner and property agent as witness to such discussion. Two other people also witnessed such arrangement, our parents.

The Southwest Multiple Listing Service Inc., reports that both Albuquerque and Rio Rancho showed increases in the median sales prices of homes in February. The monthly median price jumped from $175,000 to $185,000, however, overall home sales declined by more than 35 percent compared to Feb. 2008. “The increase of 25.1 percent [in the median home price] from last year for Rio Rancho is probably because we have seen a number of foreclosures eliminated from the market,” said Don Padilla, 2009 chair of the Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors.

Average residential mortgage rates declined to a near-record low, driven mainly by refinancing activity, according to survey data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. For the week ended March 6, mortgage applications were up about 11.6 percent from the previous week and up 5.7 percent from the same week a year ago. Refinancing accounted for 67.9 percent of all applications. Based on an 80 percent loan-to-value, the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 4.96 percent from 5.14 percent, while points increased to 1.16 from 1.05 for the week.

Have a fixed-rate mortgage at 4.5 per cent or higher? Then you should be refinancing, says Steve Moffitt, senior mortgage consultant with Equimac Mortgage Centre in Vancouver. “There’s never been a better opportunity historically, never, for doing a refinancing, ” he adds.
If only it were that simple. In fact, determining whether you should refinance or not depends largely on the penalty you will pay to get out of your current mortgage, and the amount of money you could save with a new one.