Strategic Defaults Today A recent Barclays report (via HousingWire) said: “Most popular studies overestimate the level of strategic mortgage defaults. We think that the strongest cases of active strategic defaults are less than 1% of total defaults. These borrowers are clearly capable of making mortgage payments, always remain current on all non-mortgage debts and actively
Loan Modifications
Strategic Defaults Today A recent Barclays report (via HousingWire) said: “Most popular studies overestimate the level of strategic mortgage defaults. We think that the strongest cases of active strategic defaults are less than 1% of total defaults. These borrowers are clearly capable of making mortgage payments, always remain current on all non-mortgage debts and actively
Elizabeth Warren on Consumer Protection For some reason the mortgage industry already doesn’t seem to like presidential and Treasury advisor Elizabeth Warren, who’s also tasked with setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (or Agency). Here’s the Treasury’s ‘5 Questions’ interview with Warren, which is posted on ‘Treasury Notes’ the blog that Treasury announced
Awaiting Irish Bailout Mortgage security prices ended Friday about where they started, worse by a few “ticks” (less than .125) on only $800 million of sales. So locks are way down, or everyone sold their pipeline already. Either way, if demand is steady or strong, and fewer mortgages result in less supply, look for mortgage
2011 Mortgage Rate Outlook The Mortgage Bankers Association released their mortgage rate predictions yesterday. They expect rates on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage will average 4.4% in the fourth quarter of 2010, increasing to a 4.7% average in the first quarter of 2011, and climbing to 5.1% by the end of next year. Most late-2009, early-2010
The WSJ reports that the Obama administration will roll out an expanded program this week to help home owners whose home values are less than their mortgages (excerpts below). Banks that reduce loan balances will have more flexibility in refinancing existing loans into new FHA-insured loans. Hats off to the administration for trying to help,
Guns & Mortgages This story speaks for itself, here’s the link and the epic lead paragraph below: Prosecutors: Mortgage Worker Got Drunk, Shot Computer Server A Salt Lake City mortgage company employee allegedly got drunk, opened fired on his firm’s computer server with a .45-caliber automatic, and then told police someone had stolen his gun
What Do Manufacturing & Inflation Stats Mean? Economic stats often point to different economic trends, depending on one’s viewpoint. What difference do numbers like Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization, Producer Price Index, etc., mean for anyone in the mortgage business? Aside from moving rates around, last week we saw strength in manufacturing production (pushing commodity prices
What Do Manufacturing & Inflation Stats Mean? Economic stats often point to different economic trends, depending on one’s viewpoint. What difference do numbers like Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization, Producer Price Index, etc., mean for anyone in the mortgage business? Aside from moving rates around, last week we saw strength in manufacturing production (pushing commodity prices
Fannie Mae Relief For Homeowners Near Oil Spill CitiMortgage will suspend all foreclosure sales and filings for 90 days on its 1st mortgages within 25 miles of the Gulf coast. Fannie Mae said that servicers of Fannie-backed loans may immediately suspend or lower payments on mortgages for borrowers whose income or property were affected by
Mortgage News vs. Industry Advocacy The other day a reader wrote to me and said, “I keep wondering why you continually defend mortgage brokers and bankers. Hopefully the changes that are coming from Congress should go a long way to reducing the fraud, abuse and overcharging that brokers and some bankers have been doing for
Reporter Passes Out It is not often that one is able to watch a financial newscaster pass out while on the job. And don’t ask me what relevancy a keyboard-playing cat has with any of it. Fed Continues Reign Over Small Banks Well, let’s not beat around the bush. According to the popular press, the
Rates Benefit on Stock Weakness The drop in the equity markets yesterday, and possibly again today, certainly helped the flow of funds into “safer” investments – such as Treasuries and MBS’s. But we also had some economic news of note, the first being Pending Home Sales. The index was up 5.3% in March, with sales
Lawmakers Solicit Consumer Comments On 7 Financial & Housing Reform Topics Do you want some input in financial reform? There are many ways to do this, and here is another. The public will have the opportunity to submit written responses to seven questions that will be published in the federal register online at www.regulations.gov. The
Are You Smarter Than A Congressman? If you are ever feeling down about yourself, or that you’re just not performing at the top of your game and need a boost, you can watch this for 90 seconds and compare yourself to this $174,000 a year employee. And then there’s some development in yet another well-known
Mortgage Help For Unemployed Borrowers The official announcement by the Federal Government is today, but the details came out yesterday, about funding & requiring lenders to temporarily slash or eliminate monthly mortgage payments for many borrowers who are unemployed. Banks and other lenders would have to reduce the payments to no more than 31% of
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