real estate: The Fed could make billions on MBS - mortgage-backed securities - 05/27/10 11:28 AM
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)

real estate: 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)

real estate: Southern Nevada land prices anemic, and then some - 05/23/10 03:44 PM
Land in the Las Vegas valley used to be a piping-hot commodity a few years ago, when the growth here easily topped all the other metropolitan areas in the country. The thirst for tracts of sand was such that prices zoomed higher year after year to reach a record $939,400 per acre - that is for land outside the Strip - in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to Applied Analysis, a local research shop. Housing prices closely followed the frenzied upward trend, median averages casually blowing past benchmarks that few real estate observers thought would be breached so soon.
That … (7 comments)

real estate: 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)

real estate: Las Vegas regular home sales bring top dollar - REOs and short sales lag - 05/18/10 03:46 PM
The current real estate chaos has introduced even the timid to the exotic avenues of unloading a home. Before, the industry experts were usually the only ones well-versed on REOs and foreclosure and short sales and even auctions. This generation of mortgage borrowers and homeowners has been, whether they liked it or not, put through a crash course on various "creative" methods of selling a property. Some have been personally involved in the paperwork-laden processes when delinquency was knocking on the door, while others have followed from the sidelines through media the often hair-raising developments. It has been for everyone a unique … (8 comments)

real estate: Southern Nevada resale statistics all over the map in April - 05/11/10 01:32 PM
If the median price of a single-family house is used as a sole indicator for the health of a real estate market, then Sin City would be hailed as being on the mend. According to GLVAR, or Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, Las Vegas median price grew to $142,000 in April, a strong 4.4% improvement from March. Not only that, it also is 0.2% higher from the same month last year, for the first time the year-over-year number is positive since 2007. Single-family house prices peaked in Las Vegas in February of 2007 at $310,000. The slide without a doubt … (6 comments)

real estate: Housing starts could double by next year - 05/10/10 12:40 PM
New home construction has had it very tough over the last few years, despite appealing mortgage financing and first-time and move-up buyer tax incentives. The sector simply hasn't been able to compete much with the existing real estate market because of vast price differences. Values, for instance, have sunk up to 60% in Las Vegas that basically gives new construction little chance to generate any meaningful demand. Housing starts nationwide reached 554,000 units last year, a surprisingly high number considering the malaise still hovering over the residential real estate landscape, while at the top of the bubble in 2005 they were … (8 comments)

real estate: 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)

real estate: Mortgage fraud on the rise despite new HVCC rules - Nevada way down sin list - 05/04/10 02:51 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)

real estate: 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)

real estate: 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)

real estate: High housing inventory could further delay expected market turnaround - 04/26/10 12:20 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)

real estate: 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)

real estate: CityCenter puts off Veer Towers completion - Las Vegas high-rise condominium market still struggling - 04/22/10 08:07 AM
MGM Mirage is now planning to open the two-tower luxury complex - sitting in the middle of CityCenter and drawing admiring and sometimes quizzical looks with its two leaning towers - in May. It was scheduled to do so in mid-December when most of the mammoth multi-billion-dollar resort on the Strip began welcoming its first guests. The reason to the delay is quite clear. The current economic slump has deeply trimmed down the potential buyer pool for condos at Veer Towers. The same actually goes for all high-rise projects in Las Vegas.
Mortgage finance has been a problem all along. Lenders … (6 comments)

real estate: 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)

real estate: 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)

real estate: 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)

real estate: Freddie Mac to auction REO homes in Vegas in late April - Be there - 04/13/10 10:15 AM
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)

real estate: FHA takes risk management seriously - 04/11/10 03:25 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)

real estate: 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)