You're seen the headlines and heard the chatter around the water cooler - mortgage interest rates have gone up and continue to rise. Is this the end of whatever housing market recovery we were starting to see? Will this be a return to renting for people who were thinking of buying a home? Or is it just a small adjustment in the overall scheme of things? 

A lot of media and news outlets are reporting interesting news about the current housing market. One article from the Associated Press says home buyers should really save up for a 20% down payment. The same article puts mortgage pre-approval down on the list of "first steps." The problem is that the article is a bit misleading. Sure, 20% down will work. However, home buyers have some great low down payment options available in today's housing market.

Buying a fixer upper or figuring out a way to pay for home improvements on your own home...each situation can involve a solution that sounds more like a retirement plan than a mortgage loan. It's called the FHA 203k and it can help solve the question of how to finance home improvements, renovations or repairs.

A Mortgage Minute TV viewer asked a great question in the comments to one of our FHA 203k videos. I went straight to the expert, AmeriFirst's Renovation Program Manager Joe Daly to get the answer. As always, he was quick to get me an easy to understand, informative answer. So I decided to include the information in an article so everyone could have the information available.