This is booming in popularity.

Leading up to the housing crash, people tended to use their homes as ATM. They'd take out massive HELOC (Home Equity Line Of Credit). They'd borrow against the equity they had built up in their home to pay off credit card debt or the like. Then they often built up that credit card debt again and when the value of their home plunged in the crash, they were in a very tough position.

Read more on Have You Heard Of The Cash-In Refinance?…

The character traits that it will take to modify your mortgage will also do you well in life — patience, honesty, diligence and persistence.

How we handle money is a great tipoff to our character.

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The Federal Reserve has a program in place to buy $1.25 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities to keep mortgage interest rates low and revive the housing market.

This program has been credited with keeping the housing market steady over the past six months.

Read more on Federal Reserve Conflicted Over Its Mortgage Intervention Program…

The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates artificially low for most of the past decade. That is what caused the housing boom and bust. Rising interest rates would lower home values and cause more foreclosures, which in turn lower. home values.

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This should pep up refinances.

Rates went down to a record low of 4.71% in early December. Since they've been heading steadily up. There are all sorts of reasons driving this increase in mortgage rates including huge government deficits, a weak dollar, surging commodity prices…

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I'm waiting for massive government borrowing to drive up interest rates.

Mortgage rates are now well above 5%.

This should choke off the refinance market and slow already low home sales.

Read more on Mortgage Rates Above 5%…

An economist says that even though commercial real estate is taking, it won't be a severe enough problem to cause the entire economy to return to recession.

Every time I read an article on commercial real estate, it keeps using the phrase "the next shoe to drop."

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Dennis Prager talked to economist Tom Sowell, 79, on Dec. 15, 2009 about his new book “The Housing Boom and Bust”.

Dennis: “Who caused this bust?”

Tom: “Government. The people who were forced directly to make the bad loans under the Community Reinvestment Act (1977) and other legislation following it don’t constitute the majority of people who lend, that is true, but it is also true that about a decade ago, there was what was called a ‘voluntary agreement’ by those lenders not covered by the Community Reinvestment Act to in effect follow the same guidelines with the threat over them being that they would be prosecuted for discrimination if they didn’t. This prosecution…would be imposed if you were a lender who refused to lend on a house worth less than a $60,000 since low-income minorities are more likely to buy this kind of house and would be a ‘disparate impact.’”

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Mortgage interest rates are at their lowest levels since the 1940s, but refinances are hard to come by. Regulators are pressuring banks to up their reserves, which means less money for loans.

Read more on Despite A Trillion Dollars In Mortgage Intervention, Refinances Hard To Come By…

A large number of homeowners remain in home where they owe more on their mortgage than it is worth. People get attached to their homes and they don't want the hassle of a foreclosure, the significant hit it gives to one's credit score, and they don't want the bother of moving.

Read more on When Should You Stiff Your Lender?…