home loan: Is the growing HAMP criticism fair? - 07/23/10 04:37 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)

home loan: Foreclosure filings decline - short sales climb - mortgage distress hangs around - 07/19/10 10:31 AM
Real estate market observers have mixed feelings about RealtyTrac's Midyear 2010 Foreclosure Report. It says that 1,654,634 homeowners were sent at least one mortgage foreclosure filing from January through June. That translates to over 3,000,000 by the end of the year and RealtyTrac forecasts that over 1 million of them will eventually become repossessions, or REOs - real estate owned. The number by itself is of course alarming, but the current six month number actually is a drop of 5% from the second half of last year. Ordinarily in any housing enterprise that would be something to feel upbeat about.
On … (4 comments)

home loan: Fannie Mae gets tough on appraisal changes made by mortgage lenders - 07/11/10 05:18 AM
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)

home loan: Builders turn to green homes for competitive edge - 07/06/10 07:10 AM
The housing collapse has been particularly brutal to home builders. It's hard to market new houses regardless of the latest features when similar resale property is selling for 20-40% less. The usual incentives, like kitchen or flooring upgrades, have very little impact when the price difference reaches, say, to $50,000, and often much higher than that. The gaps are especially wide in badly-mauled cities like Las Vegas and many areas in Arizona, California and Florida. Inviting mortgage rates are available to all buyers, so no help there either.
In order to generate more interest in their products residential real estate developers … (6 comments)

home loan: Washington controls 46% of REOs today - real estate market maker for years to come - 06/30/10 07:41 AM
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)

home loan: HAMP improving subprime mortgage performance - 06/17/10 02:04 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 … (14 comments)

home loan: Effective homeownership rate in Las Vegas perilously low, according to Fed study - 06/08/10 04:02 PM
Southern Nevada homeowners were dealt a hand in the real estate and mortgage tragedy for the ages that had very little chance of keeping them in the game for long. Severe price erosion has yanked tens of thousands way underwater – a suddenly everyday term in Sin City where the mortgage balance is higher than property value – that has pushed them to reconsider the merits of continuing to honor the original home loan agreement. Making payments on a, say, $400,000 mortgage when the house is only worth $200,000 is bothering increasingly many as something they probably should not be doing. … (8 comments)

home loan: Mortgage foreclosure protection bill advances in California - Nevada keeps an eye on it - 06/06/10 03:24 PM
Homeowners in distress have encountered a myriad of challenges when trying to save their properties from foreclosure. Many have successfully navigated around all the different shoals and rocks strewn along the way. Others, far too many actually, have not. Mortgage lenders and servicers often lack the staff to handle the volume the housing meltdown has thrown at them, industry training of staff is suspect, their systems are in many cases inadequate and it’s also evident that their commitment has been at best lukewarm. The frustration level among struggling mortgage borrowers is understandably high.
California just introduced a fresh mortgage foreclosure protection … (4 comments)

home loan: Home-grown mortgage modification making headway - 06/02/10 09:23 AM
Creativity is the spice of life in the mortgage loan modification business. When the bottom fell crashing out of the real estate market and homeowners began sliding in droves toward foreclosure, home loan providers at first just watched the carnage from afar, unwilling to lift a finger for help. Soon the ominous situation grew into a full-blown crisis and the government had to get involved because the private mortgage industry couldn't or wouldn't do much about it. Despite that, mortgage lenders still found novel ways to deny most homeowners the loan modification they were applying for. The original paperwork somehow got lost, … (4 comments)

home loan: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue bleeding - 05/25/10 10:22 AM
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)

home loan: Housing gloom could last another while - Mortgage purchase applications sink - 05/20/10 02:59 PM
When the government introduced the first-time home buyer tax credit program - later it included move-up buyers as well - many real estate and mortgage movers and shakers blessed it with applause. Others weren't so sure it would work that well. The Housing research firms are predictably right now working on overdrive to put their data together and announce soon what they found out as to the initiative's effectiveness. One thing is for sure, though; it did add a respectable dose of demand to the otherwise lethargic real estate arena. It concentrated largely on the lower half of the market, Las … (12 comments)

home loan: Mortgage borrower tidbits - Las Vegas home loan applicants beware - 05/14/10 10:06 AM
When a consumer fills out a mortgage application to purchase a home, or do a refinance, it means that obtaining his credit report will follow. It's part of the process and readily accepted. Something else may also happen, though, that can cause bewilderment in the home loan applicant, maybe even anger of various decibels.
This action actually permits credit bureaus - Equifax, Experian, Innovis and TransUnion - to peddle the mortgage borrower's information to third party vendors, among which can be other home loan providers. The phone at the consumer's pad can start ringing with unwanted solicitations that probably were not … (10 comments)

home loan: Freddie Mac's mortgage delinquencies drop a notch - 05/06/10 10:08 AM
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)

home loan: Strategic mortgage defaults heading up - Las Vegas mortgage borrowers tempted - 05/03/10 05:08 AM
Despite sporadic indications that the real estate market is settling down homeowners still feel antsy. They are now considering a strategic default - a tactic generally used when the home loan balance is higher than the property's value - more often than before. This is being done even when they can afford the payments.
University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management conducted a study on strategic mortgage defaults and the numbers they arrived at are harsh. In March roughly 31% of foreclosures were labeled strategic, up 9% from March of 2009. So, now about … (0 comments)

home loan: Private mortgage insurance firms changing direction - 04/28/10 10:22 AM
PMI, or private mortgage insurance, played a large role in yesterday's real estate boom, allowing buyers acquire property without putting a penny down. That was a tempting prospect indeed. 100% financing actually became quite popular those days as values kept galloping up on a steady pace that quickly generated equity no borrower in his right mind would dare turn down. The standard rule required a PMI if the down payment was less than 20%. These insurers were making money hand over fist, like just about all the other housing market participants did.
The real estate market's collapse changed everything in a … (6 comments)

home loan: Private mortgage market showing signs of thawing - 04/25/10 11:11 AM
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)

home loan: Las Vegas real estate may not be as affordable today as it seems - 04/20/10 01:58 PM
The housing market bust in Southern Nevada - home to communities like Summerlin, Silverstone Ranch, Henderson, Mountains Edge, North Las Vegas and Rhodes Ranch - has taken down with it homeowners, mortgage lenders, real estate agents and builders, and a host of others closely tied to the industry. It has been as brutal a segment collapse as any in history. One of the most plundered victims has been the price. Homes in some of the newer subdivisions have lost as much as 60% of their value in just a few years.
To scores of once-happy and optimistic homeowners the word underwater … (4 comments)

home loan: Fannie Mae adjusts eligibility rules following pre-foreclosure action - 04/18/10 01:44 PM
The sometimes shell-shocked players in the mortgage industry are continuously scrambling to meet the exceptional challenges they face almost daily. Seemingly, not a week goes by without one of the major home loan organizations - government or private - announcing a new policy it deems necessary to better handle the real estate market's peaks and valleys. Lately it has been more valleys - the ones that ruin weekends - than the other kind.
Fannie Mae is now updating its rules on borrower eligibility after he has undergone a pre-foreclosure process, usually meaning a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, a pre-foreclosure sale or then … (4 comments)

home loan: White House solicits ideas for mortgage finance reform - Let's give them some - 04/16/10 06:27 AM
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 … (8 comments)

home loan: Las Vegas existing home sales take a solid leap in March - 04/08/10 07:21 AM
Southern Nevada resales slowed down considerably over the winter months and understandably put a little scare on local real estate folks. In the fall things had moved right along, raising hopes that some kind of a housing rebound was underway, spurred on by delicious mortgage rates and shamefully low prices. Then March rolled in and decided to reverse what had been going on over the past few months.
A total of 3,175 existing homes were closed in March, a strong 32.8% increase from February and even a 6.5% improvement from the same month last year. This data was brought to the … (6 comments)