Lake Oconee and Lake Sinclair Real Estate

RISMEDIA, Nov. 26, 2008-Mortgage rates fell last week, with rates for 30-year fixed mortgages declining to 5.92%, down from 6.03% the week prior, according to the Zillow Mortgage Rate Monitor, compiled by real estate website Zillow.com(R). Rates for 15-year fixed mortgages decreased to 5.69%, down from 5.76% and 5-1 adjustable rate mortgages rose to 5.87% from 5.85%.

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The Federal Emergency Management Agency has released digitized flood insurance rate maps of more areas of the country. The maps were initially rolled out in some areas in 2003.

This fall, they have been distributed in 100 communities in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

By 2010, about 92 percent of the U.S. population and 65 percent of the land will be covered by the maps, FEMA says.

Home owners in affected areas should check the new maps, which revise flood zones significantly. Some home owners who never needed flood insurance will need to buy it. Other homes will no longer be in flood zones, relieving their owners of the obligation to buy the insurance.

"In the past, we did not have as precise information and so, with the digital products, in some areas the special flood-hazard area has gotten smaller. In other areas it has grown," says Roy Wright, deputy director of the risk analysis division for FEMA.

Source: USA Today, Jennie Coughlin and Jessica Durando (11/11/08)