S & J Journal

The Mortgage Bankers Association predicts the number of mortgage applications for home purchases will increase and home prices will stabilize this year, as reported on MSNBC's "7 Mortgage Trends to Expect in 2011."  Real estate analysts predict several other trends for 2011... • Experts say rates will increase to 5 percent in 2011, 6 percent in 2012. • The number of jumbo loans (loans over $417,000 in most housing markets and above $729,750 in high-cost housing markets) are expected to rise in the next few months. • All-cash purchases represented about a quarter of all existing home purchases in the last four months of 2010, according to Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors. He expects all-cash purchases to continue to represent a big part of the real estate landscape in 2011.