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hamp: Mortgage walk-aways poised to accelerate - 09/16/10 10:33 PM
It appears relative calm has descended on the long-suffering housing market, especially when it comes to price movement. For months now home values have shown signs of stability, and even moderate increases in some areas. Real estate observers of course like to see that but are generally unconvinced that a sustainable real estate recovery is imminent. Too many hazards remain in its way, among them the still notable oversupply, a weak job market and the potential of many more mortgage walk-aways.
Yes, that walk-away - a term that has finessed its way into today's popular real estate vocabulary - where a … (12 comments)

hamp: Is the growing HAMP criticism fair? - 07/23/10 11:37 AM
Home Affordable Modification Program, or more commonly HAMP, was rolled out to allow mortgage lenders and servicers to make available trial modifications to an estimated 3 to 4 million homeowners.When Treasury announced its birth it raised hopes among not only mortgage borrowers in trouble but also government officials who frantically tried to bring the collapsing housing market back to its feet and with that give the badly-mauled banking sector something more concrete to lean on. But things haven't turned out all that well with HAMP.
At least that's what SIGTARP says. SIGTARP is another wonderful acronym - among so many - … (10 comments)

hamp: HAMP improving subprime mortgage performance - 06/17/10 09:04 PM
Subprime home loans became a noteworthy ingredient in the recent real estate frenzy. Large pools of them were sold on the secondary mortgage market as RMBS, or residential mortgage-backed securities, to supply additional liquidity for more loans. When the air suddenly escaped from the tremendous housing bubble the first mortgage product to absorb its swift and devastating effects was the subprime kind, leaving scores of investors wondering what had whacked them.
Moody's Investors Service details that subprime RMBS issued from 2005 to 2008 reached a delinquency level of 54.4% in January of 2010, an all-time high. From there on, though, the … (19 comments)

hamp: The Fed could make billions on MBS - mortgage-backed securities - 05/27/10 06:28 PM
When the housing market began recently unraveling at warp speed and quickly lugged the overextended mortgage industry along with it things looked quite bleak for the U.S. economy. Housing, after all, is one of its major components and should it be hit with a serious medical condition, taking a simple pain killer wouldn't help much. Then if ever, when the fury of the real estate sector's downturn became better understood, drastic action was called for.
The Federal Reserve bravely stepped forward intent on showing how it's done. Right on the heels of the private investor vanishing from the secondary mortgage market … (20 comments)

hamp: High housing inventory could further delay expected market turnaround - 04/26/10 07:20 PM
The residential real estate market is on a turbo-charged roller coaster ride. One day the news is encouraging in the form of increased existing home sales over previous months. Or that housing prices are beginning to stabilize across the country. Pieces like that will get mortgage and housing industry observers and homeowners from Las Vegas to Miami all perked up and dreaming of a brighter tomorrow. And then out of nowhere all that good feeling and improved adrenalin flow is coldly shattered by another report saying that it's not over until it's over. And it may get worse before getting better.
… (4 comments)

hamp: Mortgage giant BofA to lower principal for qualified HAMP borrowers - 03/24/10 09:02 PM
The housing market meltdown seems to be truly making life miserable for Bank of America. As things started unraveling in the residential real estate sector and pushed countless mortgage lenders to either bankruptcy or to the brink of one, BofA figured it'd buy one of them on the cheap and really grow even bigger just like that. It promptly acquired Countrywide and apparently got much more than it bargained for. The once dominant mortgage lender had plenty of bad paper in its books which then became BofA's headache. On top of that it may have had its own internal issues, but … (9 comments)

hamp: 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)