Browsing Manhattan apartment listings is easy, but buying a Manhattan apartment is -- understandably, reasonably, and inevitably -- a much more complicated enterprise. There are many reasons for this, but the simplest and most obvious would be that, while it's free to browse NYC condos at New Construction Manhattan, it costs significantly more to actually buy an apartment in Manhattan.

We're a NYC condominium blog here at New Construction Manhattan, which means that we spend much of our time and nearly all of our pixels covering -- wait for it -- NYC condominiums. Which is cool by us, certainly, given that NYC condos are kind of our thing, but also means that we've been glossing over what is one of the biggest stories in NYC real estate, as well as in real estate across the country. Namely, that would be the tumbling rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, which -- unless you're Alex Rodriguez, Mark Zuckerberg or someone who keeps several million dollars in cash on hand -- is what just about everyone who buys a NYC condominium will be signing on for after finding the Manhattan apartment of his or her dreams. Nearly every day brings news of a decline in the rates on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, to the point where it's difficult to keep up. When the Wall Street Journal wrote back in August about the historic lows in mortgage rates, it was a big deal; when those historic lows had dropped nearly another tenth of a point two weeks later, though, it was hardly a surprise.

It's complicated. It always is. But the big takeaway from recent statements by Federal Housing Administration commish David Stevens was that the FHA is planning a tightening of standards, which could in turn make it harder for first-time home-buyers to get financing through the FHA's low-down-payment mortgage program. This is news for those looking to buy condominiums in New York City and elsewhere, obviously, but it's not entirely clear just what kind of news this is, just yet. In the Boston Globe, attorney Richard Vetstein delivers some real talk on the likely effects of the tightening regs.

In the week ending July 3, mortgage rates rose 10.9%, more than making up for the feeble previous week. More details (and more encouraging figures) here: Mortgage applications rebound.

Demand for mortgages to buy homes and refinance loans bounced from seven-month lows last week, with average 30-year borrowing rates unchanged, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday. The industry group's total loan applications index rose a seasonally adjusted 10.9% to 493.1 in the week ended July 3, after slumping the prior week to the lowest level since November.