Archive for the 'Industry Topics' Category
Previewing The New Good Faith Estimate
The new Good Faith Estimate makes its debut January 1, 2010.
Expanded from 1page to 3, the legislators responsible for the new Good Faith Estimate want it to be simpler for homeowners and home buyers to understand than the former version.
By most accounts, Congress will meet this goal.
The new Good Faith Estimate includes plain-English explanations of [...]
The Fed Thinks The Economy Is Improving And What It Means For Home Affordability
Mortgage rates are higher after the Federal Reserve released the internal notes of its September 22-23, 2009 meeting.
Known as the ”Fed Minutes”, the report details the conversation and cross-currents that led to the Federal Reserve’s decision to vote “unchanged” on the Fed Funds Rate after its last meeting.
The Fed Minutes are the lengthy companion to the more famous, [...]
Falling Gas Prices May Be Linked To Lower Mortgage Rates
If you’ve been driving lately, you’ve noticed that the cost of a fill-up has gone down.
According to GasBuddy.com, retail gas now costs $2.52 per gallon, on average nationwide. Since peaking in mid-June, gas prices are down 6 percent.
For the economy, this is an important story.
Because Americans are spending less at the gas pump, [...]
3 More Signs Of A Strengthening Housing Market
The housing market got another dose of good news yesterday.
According to the National Association of REALTORS, the number of homes sold in May increased for the third straight month and the national housing supply fell by 5 months.
Furthermore, first-time home buyers are accounting for nearly one-third of the market activity.
But, before we declare a [...]
Fannie Mae declining markets announcement
According to an announcement this morning released by Fannie Mae, effective June 1, 2008 they will be decreasing the minimum down payment required in markets that are declining.
As a result consumers may purchase an owner occupied property in a declining market with as little as 3% down. Down payment requirements will vary for other occupancy, [...]
More Information on the New Conforming Limits
Thanks to Rob Chrisman for giving us this link:
Next step before we can quote any loans that fit into these new limits will be forthcoming from our investors once they decide how these will be underwritten and priced. With all that investors have on their plates with the mortgage crisis – this could be [...]
Will (state your MSA) have a higher conforming loan limit?
Want to know which MSA’s will be “in the money” on the new limits? I went to the NAR site – they have a listing of median sales prices for single family homes at http://www.realtor.org/Research.nsf/Pages/MetroPrice. I pulled the excel spreadsheet and took the values for 4th quarter 2007. I took that value [...]
Read More..>>Refinancing and Lead Volume – What have the past two days told us?
Tuesday, Jan 23rd, the day of the surprise Fed rate cut, set a record for the most leads received from a national online mortgage exchange at RMC Vanguard in a single day. Then on Wednesday, we set another record.
This tells us many interesting things as it relates to consumers, the pervasiveness of information, technology, the state [...]
Our thoughts on the Countrywide Bank of America Merger
There has been quite a bit written in the press over the past few days about Countrywide Financial Corp. People love to hate Countrywide, especially Wall Street.
We have sold closed loans to Countrywide for several years and we have one of our warehouse lines of credit (used to fund loans) with them. I thought it would [...]
Bait and Switch?
I’ve been hearing from different sources recently the claim of “bait and switch” in the lending industry. Unfortunately, it’s almost always lenders pointing fingers at other lenders. Banks point at brokers, off-line lenders point at on-line lenders, local lenders point at out of state lenders, independent lenders point at builder controlled lenders etc. [...]
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