Blowing the Lid Off the Mortgage Industry
From the category archives:
If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!“We are responding to consumers’ desires to have more refinancing options,” said Freddie Mac Executive Vice President Don Bisenius. “As an added benefit, we are expanding the program and providing greater flexibility in financing closing costs. Freddie Mac is [...]
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The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) estimates that one million new foreclosures have been filed so far in 2009. The news comes on the heels of the release of the first quarter 2009 National Delinquency Survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) which reveals that 12 percent of all mortgages are now delinquent, the highest [...]
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U.S. home values fell for the ninth consecutive quarter during the first three months of 2009 leaving one in five American homeowners with negative equity in their homes. The first quarter Zillow Home Value Index fell to $182,378, a decline of 14.2 percent over the same period in 2008. The last time the market was [...]
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“Fair housing advocates have been warning the federal government for a decade, to no avail, about the damage that abusive lending would bring,” said Shanna L. Smith, President and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA). “For too long, HUD and the Justice Department have stood by while people and neighborhoods of color have [...]
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“The metro areas with the highest levels of foreclosure activity in the first quarter of 2009 paint a picture of concentrated problems in a relative small number of hard hit areas,” explains James Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac, a leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties. “Sales activity appears to be increasing in some of these markets [...]
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Americans are spending less on luxuries these days. That includes luxury houses. The number of jumbo mortgage originations declined an estimated 70 percent nationwide during 2008. The most recent Affluent Market Tracking Study conducted semi-annually by the American Affluence Research Center, reveals that among luxury consumers, plans to purchase a primary residence of a vacation [...]
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The volume of mortgage loan applications filed during the week ending April 3, 2009, increased by more than 4 percent last week, according to the Weekly Applications Survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). In addition, the proportion of applications for home purchases compared to refinancing applications also grew.
The Market Composite Index, which measures loan [...]
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First time homebuyers represent a significant portion of single-family home sales. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is intended to increase the impact of first-time homebuyers on both the real estate and home loan industries by making it easier for them to enter, or re-enter, since USA Today reports homebuyers who have not [...]
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As the number of struggling homeowners facing foreclosure continues to rise, so do the number of unscrupulous individuals and firms will to prey on them.
“A mortgage lender or a financial counselor can assist you in finding real options to avoid foreclosure,” said Sissy Osteen, an Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension resource management specialist. “If someone [...]
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“It’s not all doom and gloom. We found Americans are optimistic about homeownership despite concerns,” said Steve Berkowitz, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Move, Inc. “They’re doing everything they can, from reducing discretionary spending to pay their mortgages, to planning to take advantage of the administration’s new program to stop foreclosures. They’re also working with [...]
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