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freddie mac: Mortgage financing within reach for many based on median income - 05/16/12 04:18 PM
NAR – the National Association of Realtors – recently put together a report that should spread some cheer on faces of everyone who is planning on purchasing a home. Actually, it also should quicken the heartbeat in the mortgage loan industry and among real estate agents. And the home building sector, too. And, for that matter, help stabilize the entire economy.
 
According to NAR, the national median income in the first quarter stood at $61,000, fair enough. So, if a mortgage applicant wanted to buy a property mirroring the national median price, the income to get the home loan approved … (0 comments)

freddie mac: FHFA nudges Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into action on short sales - 04/23/12 09:01 AM
If there ever was a nightmare for Realtors in the last few years in the housing market it was the short sale. The psychology profession is still compiling data on how many man hours of sleep per night they lose during each short sale adventure but when the official figure comes out sometime soon it must be several. It has been that bad. The current real estate recession made the short sale famous, the talk of the micro brew pub crowd. It can take months for a real estate agent to navigate one of them through all the different-size hoops the nation’s mortgage … (14 comments)

freddie mac: Private transfer fees experience the ire of FHFA - 08/23/10 10:25 PM
It looks like the Federal Housing Finance Agency - or FHFA - is getting ready to introduce new regulations later this year that would prevent Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks - FHLBanks - from investing in mortgage loans tagged with these now notorious private transfer fees. This would then effectively bring major government-controlled home loan players in agreement about them, because FHA already is, according to HUD's regulations, banned from insuring mortgages on homes with private transfer fees. They are considered "legal restrictions on conveyance" in FHA talk.
These private transfer fees are brought to life … (16 comments)

freddie mac: Fannie Mae's new strategic default rule could amount to very little - 07/30/10 04:05 PM
Fannie Mae recently took an assertive step, in its own mind at least, to stem the growing tendency of mortgage borrowers pulling off strategic defaults. In that homeowners who could afford their payments choose to walk away from the obligation anyway. The GSE went ahead and added another category to the new policy. Home loan recipients who fail to do a workout in good faith also fall under the spell of its new guidelines. What this all means is that property owners fitting these parameters would be ineligible for mortgages backed by Fannie Mae for seven long years from the recorded … (46 comments)

freddie mac: Fannie Mae gets tough on appraisal changes made by mortgage lenders - 07/11/10 12:18 PM
The real estate market meltdown has exposed many painful and game-changing weaknesses in how business was conducted in the years past. In the quest to make as much money as possible scores of mortgage files were pushed through with incomplete or doctored information. Now, with foreclosures the topic of the day, mortgage lenders are receiving growing demands from investors like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy back loans they originated haphazardly. That can be devastating to the bottom line.
To deal with the costly buyback menace many mortgage shops have commenced tinkering with appraisals, of all things. As an appraisal … (6 comments)

freddie mac: Washington controls 46% of REOs today - real estate market maker for years to come - 06/30/10 02:41 PM
The housing industry is relying heavily on government-backed mortgage organizations like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA for supplying financing to home buyers, filling a gaping void left by the private home loan sector still applying remedial salve to its festering wounds. Without them the real estate arena would be uniquely anemic. And the government is slowly gaining even more control over housing in a different but quite influential capacity, whether it likes it or not.
As mortgage foreclosures keep steadily spilling onto the ravaged real estate market, GSEs - Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's official designation - and its federal … (10 comments)

freddie mac: Curious strategic mortgage default legislation proposed - 06/13/10 10:33 PM
Washington has already come up with some unusual and at times confusing legislation during this enduring housing collapse to correct perceived deficiencies. HVCC – the Home Valuation Code of Conduct – addressing the alleged appraisal problems of the recent past is one. The new RESPA – Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act – is another that has led to many complaints and questions from the mortgage and real estate industries and puzzles the consumer as well. More of the same could be forthcoming.
House Republicans presented a surprise rider at the end of an FHA-related debate the other day that would … (14 comments)

freddie mac: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue bleeding - 05/25/10 05:22 PM
The two large GSEs, or government sponsored enterprises, that provide much of the liquidity to the secondary mortgage market are trying to improve their still misbehaving portfolios. Their underwriting guidelines have been steadily getting stricter which will certainly help, but most of the benefits of that will come later. The home loans currently causing such havoc for them were originated around the peak of the real estate bubble and soon after it spectacularly blew up into small particles. Their efforts are now largely focused on putting the breaks on the losses they are presently enduring.
Mortgage lenders requested to repurchase GSE's … (6 comments)

freddie mac: Freddie Mac's mortgage delinquencies drop a notch - 05/06/10 05:08 PM
Freddie Mac has been pummeled thoroughly in the eye of the real estate meltdown, so much so that the government finally had to take over its operations due to heavy mortgage losses. In the recent past its matters seemed to be settling down a bit but now it needs another $10 billion from Washington to cover its 1st quarter setbacks. Besides that, it also has some good news to release.
For the first time since April of 2007 Freddie Mac can report that delinquencies for single-family home loans it guarantees slipped to 4.13% in March, from 4.20% in February. Although it … (6 comments)

freddie mac: Mortgage fraud on the rise despite new HVCC rules - Nevada way down sin list - 05/04/10 09:51 PM
When the real estate chaos engulfed the nation one of the alleged causes to it was how mortgage brokers were pushing appraisers around to "hit the number." Home loan professionals were smooth-talking them - in some cases supposedly being even rather loud about it - to value a property at what their contract said it should be. In those go-go years it commonly meant many appraisals came in high. This practice, in some shape or form fraud, had to be put under a large microscope the big mortgage banks were telling everybody who would listen and eventually were able to convince … (10 comments)

freddie mac: Private mortgage market showing signs of thawing - 04/25/10 06:11 PM
When the real estate market succumbed a few years ago into a deep recession it took the home loan sector with it. While many mortgage lenders failed spectacularly, others were kept from falling off the map by costly government bailouts or found a hopeful merger partner. This sudden inferno quickly chased the private - domestic and foreign - investor almost completely away from the secondary mortgage market where they had been buying securities to support the U.S. housing industry. Mortgage financing lately has been almost exclusively provided by government-affiliated agencies Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA. The behind the scenes mover … (4 comments)

freddie mac: White House solicits ideas for mortgage finance reform - Let's give them some - 04/16/10 01:27 PM
The home loan market has evolved over the decades into a colossal and thoroughly complicated system that is so hard to get one's arms around with any authority. One of the latest additions to it were the otherworldly subprime mortgages and their subsequent securitization that eventually grew so tricky that few, if anyone for that matter, can today decipher what they actually look like. A fair part of the blame for the current real estate collapse can be squarely allocated to this out-of-control creativity.
The White House put forth seven questions for public comment in its quest to overhaul the mortgage … (13 comments)

freddie mac: Freddie Mac to auction REO homes in Vegas in late April - Be there - 04/13/10 05:15 PM
Mortgage money remains affordable, prices are way low in Southern Nevada - with subdivisions like Rhodes Ranch, Southern Highlands, Silverstone Ranch, Charleston Heights, Silverado Ranch and Mountains Edge - and Washington is sweetening the pot with an up to $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit. What more can a rookie home buyer expect? Well, there is more. Now Freddie Mac brings its multi-car auction train to Las Vegas with a passion.  
Freddie Mac has a HomeSteps unit that markets and sells its REOs, or real estate owned, across the country. In this exhausting housing downturn it has been increasingly … (4 comments)

freddie mac: FHA takes risk management seriously - 04/11/10 10:25 AM
As FHA's market share has soared over the past few years, thanks to the vacuum left by conventional mortgage lenders whose fortunes have suffered terrible setbacks in the ongoing real estate calamity. But it hasn't escaped the anger of the sinking housing market either. It has bravely insured mortgage loans with only the minimum 3.5% down all along and as prices have continued spiraling south these loans have gone underwater sometimes in a few months - particularly vulnerable were many Las Vegas mortgage borrowers, as well as those in Miami and many parts of California -  and that often spells trouble. … (21 comments)

freddie mac: Will mortgage rates head higher soon? A tough one - 03/18/10 05:23 PM
The real estate market has been meandering along with little purpose for a long time, trying urgently to locate firm ground anywhere from which to launch something resembling a rebound. That it is in a position like this at all it can thank the government for. Despite what the FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have done, the Fed has easily been the main dynamo supplying badly needed liquidity to the secondary mortgage market, where it has been actively buying MBS, or mortgage-backed securities. It quickly and prudently filled in the void left by the private investor when the housing sector dramatically … (17 comments)

freddie mac: Housing recovery needs a stable mortgage market - 02/07/10 04:51 PM
Mortgage lending today is mostly in the hands of the government. Just about all new home loan financing or refinances are either purchased, securitized or insured by government agencies, the likes of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA leading the charge. Then there is the Federal Reserve that has filled the gaping void left by scared and loss-licking private investors in the secondary mortgage market. Without the Fed rolling up its sleeves and operating there that key segment would resemble a person from "Honey, I shrunk the kids." If so, the real estate market as it has been known until now … (6 comments)

freddie mac: Mortgage lenders forced to buy back bad loans - 02/02/10 05:57 PM
Mortgage paper by the millions has been lately marked with a big fire-red stamp BAD. Or some home loan industry observers prefer to use the equally merciless description TOXIC. There probably are a few other choice words floating in the media about them. Nevertheless, these mortgages in default are a major weight on the books of anyone who holds them - generally portfolio lenders and investors - and that being so, they want to get rid of them, if at all possible.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the colossal GSEs, which make up a large chunk of the secondary mortgage market, … (13 comments)

freddie mac: Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on death row? - 01/25/10 11:11 PM
House honcho Barney Frank feels that it's time to let these two GSEs, the home loan superstars that have for a long time dominated the secondary mortgage market, expire. Instead of trying to fix them, they should be strapped down and given some liquid that puts them to sleep.  
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in all honesty, have had their problems lately. Years ago they were rocked by management shenanigans, including cooking the books to allow top leaders pocket fatter bonuses. Sounds familiar? More recently they have suffered heavy losses as the real estate market flew right over the cliff … (57 comments)

freddie mac: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get further Treasury support - mortgage borrowers in Las Vegas to benefit? - 01/05/10 10:57 PM
The giant GSEs - or Government-sponsored Enterprises - have been mandated to provide liquidity to the mortgage marketplace and over the years they have fulfilled that role very successfully. They grew to dominate the conventional conforming home loan segment. But when the world-famous housing bubble began gathering steam Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac somehow got caught in its frenzy, were thoroughly ill-treated when it burst and eventually ended up being put into a government conservatorship. Their total failure was not an option.
These mortgage companies are still reeling, absorbing heavy blows as the battered real estate market spawns more foreclosures.
The … (4 comments)

freddie mac: Subprime home loans are back - Las Vegas mortgage borrowers go FHA - 10/29/09 06:23 PM
Mortgage loans that were labeled subprime just a few years ago were partly responsible for the notorious real estate bubble. When it burst and let all the air out, the subprime product quickly disappeared from the bloodied scene. Many housing observers warmed up their fingers over keyboards and wrote all these tearful obituaries, believing it would be gone for good. But guess what? It's now back.
This much-criticized mortgage segment has adopted a new backer, however. Subprime used to be pretty much exclusively conventional lenders' territory, until the recent thermonuclear event. With their exit a new player emerged to fill the … (10 comments)