Posts Tagged ‘Mortgage’
Home Buyers Could Pay for Payroll-Tax Cut
At face value, it seems like an easy, albeit creative way to pay for the extension of the payroll tax cut. Raise the fees that banks pay mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to guarantee home loans.
What Are Buyers Really Putting Down for a Mortgage?
Ask the Realtors, the Builders, even the Housing Reporters, and they'll all tell you that the biggest impediments to housing's recovery are higher credit underwriting standards.
Half of US Mortgages Are Effectively Underwater
Over 50 percent of all mortgaged households in the US are effectively underwater — unable to sell for enough to pay the six percent Realtor's fee and put a down payment on a new home, a mortgage analyst says.
Federal Housing Finance Agency Under Inspector’s Fire
Given that the conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has been wielding incredible power of late in deciding how much the two mortgage giants can and cannot charge in guarantee fees and whom they can and cannot refinance, it was particularly disturbing to learn the that same FHFA has been deemed, dare I say it, incompetent, at least in one of its oversight capacities.
Should Everyone Get Bonus For Paying Mortgage On Time?
As home values continue to fall and more borrowers fall into a negative equity position on their home loans, those who stand to lose, banks and investors, are working to keep borrowers current.
Homeowners Drowning in Negative Equity
Today Zillow.com reported a new high in negative equity: 28.4 percent of single family homes with a mortgage. That's a national average, but the numbers are far worse in some of the nation's big metros.
Short Sales Pressure Home Prices
Home prices fell 6.7 percent in February year over year, according to a new report from CoreLogic. That numbers includes distressed sales, that is, sales of foreclosed properties or short sales, where the bank agrees to let the homeowner sell for less than the value of the mortgage. If you take those sales out, however, home prices were basically flat.
Will Banks Be Forced to Reduce Loan Principal?
I'm reporting today from a Wells Fargo two-day mortgage modification event in Portland, OR. This is the 20th such event WFC has held since September of 2009, meeting face to face with over 19,000 borrowers.
How “Distressed” Home Sales Are Fuzzing the Numbers
A new report today shows distressed sales, that is bank-owned properties and short sales, where the home is sold for less than the value of the mortgage, made up 47 percent of all home sales in December. That's up from 44.5 percent in November.
Pension Funds Threaten Big Banks Over Foreclosures
Mortgage, housing and banking analysts took the weekend to pontificate on the ramifications of last Friday's decision by Massachusetts' highest court to void two foreclosures due to improper paperwork. A coalition of state pension funds took a different tack: They fired a shot across the bow of the big banks.
