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Home Builder Confidence Falls. Foul Weather and Distressed Sales Cited as Reason	3/15/2010 1:17 PM
The National Association of Home Builders released their monthly Housing Market Index today. Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for more than 20 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.” The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to very low.” Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor. In March, Builder confidence lost the small amount of progress seen in February...(read more) Forward this article via email: Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.
Loan Mod Conversion Rate Improves in February. True Success Depends on Job Creation	3/15/2010 12:40 PM
The Making Home Affordable Program (HAMP) , a joint effort by the Departments of the Treasury and Housing and Urban Development to prevent foreclosures, is reporting that 168,708 homeowners have now graduated from the HAMP trial modification program and have active permanent modifications by the end of February. This works out to a 12.4 percent conversion rate, a modest improvement from January when the permanent modification conversion rate was 9.2 percent. The program, which began last spring, has now enrolled 1,094,064 borrowers in modifications which lower mortgage payments to a maximum of 31 percent of monthly income. 1,354,350 invitations to participate in the program have been extended to distressed homeowners. This is 34 to 45 percent of the goal of 3 to 4 million set for the end of...(read more) Forward this article via email: Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.
The Week Ahead: FOMC Meeting, Housing Data, Inflation, Industrial Production	3/15/2010 6:01 AM
Equity markets are mostly lower across the globe Monday, leading US stocks to open sharply lower ahead of a moderately busy schedule. Two hours before the bell sounds, Dow futures are off 30 points to 10,543 and S&P 500 futures are down 4.50 points to 1,142.00. Commodity prices are mixed as WTI crude oil is trading down 58 cents to $80.66 per barrel but Spot Gold prices are up $2.37 to $1,104.27. Key Events This Week: Monday: 8:30 ― The Empire State Manufacturing Index is expected to expand for the eighth consecutive month in March. The consensus expects the index to fall 3 points to 22.0 in March, reflecting strong growth overall in the region. Economists from Nomura worry that the strong figures in February may not have been wholly accurate due to the early timing of the release. “Most...(read more) Forward this article via email: Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.
Fitch Ratings: Expiring Housing Incentives Likely to Increase Loan Losses this Year	3/12/2010 11:51 AM
Fitch Ratings is warning that the expiring homebuyer tax credits, the end of the Fed's MBS Purchase Program , and the growing maturity of various government loan modifications programs are likely to increase loss severities on distressed mortgage loans later this year. The report says that these factors as well as low interest rates and the Federal Reserve's $1.25 trillion mortgage-backed securities purchase program have led to an improvement in both home prices and loss severities since the second quarter of 2009, but this is unlikely to continue. The $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers and $6,500 credit for move-up buyers will be effectively expiring with the deadline for signed sales contracts on April 30. Buyers must complete the sale by June 30 so any drop off in sales...(read more) Forward this article via email: Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.
USDA Rural Housing Funds to Run Dry by April. Lenders Already Dropping the Program	3/12/2010 11:04 AM
USDA Section 502 loans are primarily used to help low-income individuals or households purchase homes in rural areas. Funds can be used to build, repair, renovate or relocate a home, or to purchase and prepare sites, including providing water and sewage facilities. There is no required down payment. The lender must determine repayment feasibility, using ratios of repayment (gross) income to PITI and to total family debt. John Rodgers called my attention to the following bulletin released by the USDA: This message is to notify you that program funding for the Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program will likely be exhausted by the end of April, 2010 . Once funding is exhausted, the Agency will not issue Conditional Commitments “subject to receipt of appropriated funds. ” This...(read more) Forward this article via email: Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.
Freddie Mac Announces Cut Off Date for Interest Only Loan Apps	3/12/2010 9:43 AM
As reported on February 26 , Freddie Mac has decided to stop purchasing and securitizating loans utilizing the interest only payment option. Freddie's deadline for PURCHASING these loans was set as September 2010, however no application/LP approval date cut-off was provided in the bulletin. This deadline was announced yesterday in Bulletin 2010-7 Here is the verbiage from the release: Effective for mortgages with application dates on or after June 13, 2010 , and for mortgages with Freddie Mac settlements on or after September 1, 2010 we are: Retiring our Initial InterestSM Mortgage offering. Beginning June 13, Initial Interest Mortgages will not be eligible for submission or resubmission to Loan Prospector® . Plain and Simple : if you want to sell Freddie Mac an interest only loan,...(read more) Forward this article via email: Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.
Fed MBS Program Update: 98.1% of Funding Used. Looming Exit Yet to Hurt Rates	3/12/2010 8:46 AM
The Federal Reserve reported on their weekly purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS). In the week ending March 10, 2010, the Federal Reserve purchased a gross total of $29.4 billion agency MBS. In that week the Fed sold $19.4 billion mortgage-backeds (supported the roll), for a net total of $10.0 billion agency MBS purchases. While this amount is unchanged from the previous week, the broader trend of a decline in weekly purchases continues. The goal of the Federal Reserve's agency MBS program is to provide support to mortgage and housing markets and to foster improved conditions in financial markets more generally. Only fixed-rate agency MBS securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae are eligible assets for the program. The program includes, but is not...(read more) Forward this article via email: Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.
The Day Ahead: Euro Data Pushes Stocks up Ahead of Retail Sales	3/12/2010 7:06 AM
Equities are higher and the dollar is weaker following positive data from Europe and ahead of key retail sales numbers at home. More than two hours before the opening bell, markets edging higher with Dow futures are up 21 points to 10,569 and the S&P 500 pointing up by 2.25 points to 1,148.25. Meantime, the dollar is slightly weaker, WTI crude oil is up 51 cents to $82.62 per barrel, and Spot Gold is up $7.93 to $1,117.43. Sentiment was boosted as Eurozone industrial production hammered expectations and jumped 1.7% in January, marking the biggest gain in more than two decades. Figures for December were also revised up. Industrial production also jumped 2.7% in Japan, also beating expectations. Back in the US, headlines are beaming that Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Fed, has...(read more) Forward this article via email: Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.
Foreclosure Filings Drop. Prevention Policies Distorting Supply and Demand	3/11/2010 4:25 PM
Today RealtyTrac® released its February U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. The RealtyTrac report shows that foreclosure filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions declined 2 percent from January. A total of 308,524 properties in the United States received one of the listed notices during the month. This equates to 1 house in every 418 units. Compare that to January's ratio of 1 in every 409. That works out to a 10% month over month improvement. However, when comparing data from one year ago (Feb 2009), the ratio is still 6% worse. James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac says, "The 6 percent year-over-year increase we saw in February was the smallest annual increase we've seen since January 2006 , when we began calculating...(read more) Forward this article via email: Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.
FHA Commissioner: Raising the Down Payment Requirement Would Hurt Housing Recovery	3/11/2010 1:40 PM
Increasing the minimum down payment required for a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan from 3.5 percent to 5 percent could be a double whammy, affecting both potential homebuyers and the economy as a whole according to David H. Stevens, FHA Commissioner. At the same time, a lower loan to value ratio (LTV) by itself is not a particularly good indicator of buyer risk. In a statement prepared for a hearing Thursday afternoon by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, the Commissioner said if the agency raised the minimum down payment to 5 percent "as some have suggested," it would adversely impact the housing market recovery. The agency has conducted an evaluation of the loan files of a large sample of recent loans to identify homeowners...(read more) Forward this article via email: Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.

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