Eric Reid

The country is going through a house selling boom at the bottom. Nationally, home prices are down 31% from the 2006 peak, and lots of the sales are foreclosures, although just about anything that's moving is cheap. A lot of the investing action around the country is in lower-end homes, which have a ready market of renters and are often priced low enough to be purchased for cash. The activity is centered primarily in fading manufacturing hubs like Detroit and Cleveland, and famous bubble cities like Miami, Phoenix, and Sacramento, but investors are sniffing around for cut-rate deals just about everywhere from Memphis to Philadelphia.

Average Sold Home Prices in the greater Gwinnett are for August were $187,542

Mortgage rates up

Two weekly surveys this week reported a rise in mortgage rates, ending a nearly six-week run of steady or declining rates in the Freddie Mac weekly survey. Freddie Macs weekly survey of agency-purchased loans put the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) stayed below 5% but increased 5bps to 4.92% with a 0.7 point for the week ending October 15. Last year, the 30-year FRM was 6.46%. The 15-year FRM rate was 4.37% with a 0.7 point in the Freddie Mac survey, up from 4.33% last week, but down from a year ago when it was 6.14%. Bankrate.coms index, which tracks large US banks and thrifts, put the 30-year FRM at 5.32% with a 0.34 point, up 10bps from the week prior. Bankrate.com put the 15-year FRM at 4.7%, up 10bps. The five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 4.38% with an average 0.6 point, up from last week when it was 4.35%. A year ago, it was 6.14%. The one-year ARM averaged 4.6% with an average 0.5 point, up from 4.53% last week.

Foreclosures up

Since government intervention began in September 2008, foreclosure sales remain stunted, dropping 8.6% from the previous month and 40.6% from a year ago. But the percentage of foreclosures sold to third parties, who are usually investors, grew by 215% from last year and 3.27% from August, according to ForeclosureRadars monthly foreclosure report. Arizona leads all states with an increase of filings by 36.1% in September, followed by Florida (29.6%), Texas (24.3%), and Michigan (18.22%). Filings in California increased only 1.08% in September, but the volume has grown by 123% from last year.

Urban areas were hit hardest and spurred the increases. In Arizona, the statewide increase was fueled by a massive 81.3% increase in Phoenix foreclosures. Foreclosures in Las Vegas jumped 47.4%; Atlanta had a 39.9% increase; Chicagos rates climbed 36.2%; and Houston had a 33.2% spike in foreclosures, according to ForeclosureListings.com. RealtyTrac says foreclosure filings in Q309 increased to a level unseen since it began reporting the figures in January of 2005.

BOA reports big loss

Bank of America (BOA) announced today that it suffered a $2.2 billion loss in the third-quarter quarter. Contributing to that was a $1.2 billion dividend payment to its preferred shareholders, including the U.S. government, credit losses within some of its consumer-related businesses, and $402 million after it agreed to eliminate a loss-sharing agreement it had struck with the government earlier this year. "Obviously, credit costs remain high, and that is our major financial challenge going forward." Most of this quarter's losses were in Bank of America's mortgage and credit card businesses, which together lost more than $1 billion during the July-September period.

BOA funded $95.7 billion in first mortgages, selling purchase or refinance loans to nearly 450,000 borrowers, including $23.3bn in mortgages to 154,000 low- and moderate-income borrowers during the quarter. About 39% of all the first mortgages were for purchases. Year-to-date at the end of Q309, BOA modified the mortgages of approximately 215,000 customers, and an additional 98,000 BOA mortgage customers are in the trial stage of a Making Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) workout. The overall results were slightly worse than Wall Street was expecting. Analysts had anticipated that the company would suffer a loss of 21 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters, but in fact lost 26 cents a share.

Use these quick tips to help keep up with your credit and obtain the best possible rates:

1. Perform a free annual credit review. According to law, each and every person is allowed one free credit report annually. Take time to review for errors or inconsistencies. Research shows nearly one of every five have significant errors that could result in higher interest rates, increase insurance premiums or even denial of loans.

2. Watch credit limits carefully. Even those that carry a low balance or charge significant amounts each month may be shocked by how much impact reduced credit limits can have on their FICO score. Experts agree it is advisable to refrain from using more than 50 percent of your total available credit and/or more than 50-65 percent of available credit on any one give source.

3. Dont cancel cards. There is a fine line between having too many cards and too few; another commonly used criteria is duration of credit. Think twice before canceling dormant credit cards. Instead, consider using them to make a small purchase then immediately paying in full.

4. Read those statements! Credit card companies are already hitting dormant cards with fees ranging from $20 to over $100 annually for failure to use the cards within the past 6 to 12 months. A dormant card fee combined with a late payment can quickly create credit problems before you are even aware there is an issue. Open all credit card statements and review promptly.

5. Bad Buys. Know that annoying fraud prevention feature that seems to pop-up at the worst times? Yknow the oneit puts your card on hold when you are trying to pay for an expensive dinner out of town or making an online purchase for delivery at another address. Well, another closely related tracking tool is increasingly making its presence know by reducing credit limits or raising interest rates after consumers make certain purchases. For example, trying to save a few bucks by buying re-treads on your teens ride could bump your rates up by far more than you saved. A few quick trips to one of those big box stores when your typically shop at Neiman Marcus may indicate a potential red flag of future economic problems. Dont even think of paying for a family lawyer with a credit carddivorce is strongly associated with financial problems and likely to send a strong signal.