Wondering if the income needed to buy a home in the top 50 metro areas is starting to decline? Hint: Not yet.
Q: I have a ten-year mortgage and a ten-year line of credit which has three years left to go. Should I combine them?
A: If you have no use for the line of credit -- you are simply making payments, but don't expect to have a need to draw equity in the next couple of years, you might consider combining them. However, it's hard to say if there will be any interest savings, which will depend on the rate you are paying now on both loans relative to what you can obtain in the market.
Whether you should pay off your mortgage or not sounds like a simple problem with an easy answer... but it's not.
Read MoreMortgage rates fluctuate from day to day, depending on a number of factors related to the economy and to choices made by investors. While some mortgage money comes from deposits held by banks and credit unions, most of the funds for borrowers come from investors in capital markets.
Read MoreMortgage rates are influenced by a variety of factors, rather than moving in lockstep with any one economic indicator. The stock market rises and falls for a wide variety of reasons, including global, economic and political issues, but as a broad rule of thumb, a rising stock market indicates optimism among investors about the economy.
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