30-year mortgage falls below 5% for the first time ever!


mortgage rate graphAccording to marketrate.com, the national average rate on the 30-year loan fell to 4.96% in the week ending Jan. 15, down from 5.01% a week ago. That is the lowest rate on record. Freddie Mac began its rate survey in 1971. A year ago the loan averaged 5.69%.  The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage, a popular refinancing choice, edged up to 4.65% from 4.62% a week ago. Last year at this time the loan averaged 5.21%.

Madison mortgage bankers are reporting a huge surge in refinancing activity as mortgage rates have plumbed historic lows...

If you're a first-time home buyer interested in taking advantage of these historically low rates, please contact us at Lake & City Homes to discuss the advantages of using…

7371 Views, 2 Comments


Yippee! The South Central Wisconsin MLS board completed its compliance on our new site yesterday (in very short order, I might add) and Real Estate Webmasters' development server login prompt was removed from our site this morning. So as of today, we have liftoff my friends and it is official: www.LakeAndCityHomes.com is now live!

Over the past few days we've added over one hundred popular searches and almost 150 pages of unique content relating to Dane County homes and the Greater Madison Area real estate market (with much more content to come!). We're anticipating that many of the popular searches we've created will become favorites with site visitors. We want to make it a snap for you to find the homes that fit your lifestyle in the areas you're…

3670 Views, 12 Comments

example of a kludgeAccording to Wikipedia, a kludge, also referred to sometimes as a kluge or cluft, is "a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem or difficulty". In engineering, a kludge is considered a "workaround", typically using unrelated parts cobbled together. And in computer programs, a kludge is often used to fix unexpected problems usually caused by earlier kludges.

Last night, in response to my nine year-old not taking the time to thoroughly search his pajama drawer - and therefore incorrectly, and rather impatiently, concluding that there were no long pajama bottoms available - decided on this novel, yet decidedly kludgy, way of addressing the problem. Simply wear three pairs of short pajama bottoms to create the necessary coverage! Although not fully…

28938 Views, 4 Comments


Happy New Year and Welcome to the launch of my new & improved real estate website, Lake & City Homes!

After five years in the industry, I can't think of a better way to confront uncertain times in the real estate market than by meeting them head on. While some may duck for cover or exit the industry altogether, I believe the way forward is to demonstrate a renewed commitment to serving my clients by:

  • ♦ investing in my own brokerage
  • ♦ developing new ideas
  • ♦ developing better tools
  • ♦ developing superior strategies

Thanks to the incredible talent at Real Estate Webmasters, I've evolved my web presence from what was essentially stale brochureware (built by your's truly with outdated and unsupported tools such as Microsoft Frontpage) to…

4507 Views, 6 Comments