Shortly after finishing my video recap of the 2011 St Louis Real Estate Market I began analyzing our market data and giving thought to the 2012 St. Louis Real Estate market. The end result? The MORE St Louis Market 2012 Forecast. For a link to my 15 minute video as well as a downloadable report, please submit your name and email address here and you will receive it immediately. Continue reading “Where is the St Louis Real Estate Market Headed in 2012?“
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This morning Freddie Mac released its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) which showed average 30-year fixed-rate mortgages matched an all time record low of 3.94 percent, and there was an all-time record low rate for 15-year fixed rate mortgages. Continue reading “30-Year Fixed-Rate Mortgage Matches All-Time Record Low at 3.94 Percent“
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced it eased the requirements as well as extended the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) to December 31, 2013 from the current expiration date for the program of June 30, 2012. According to FHFA, as of August 31, 2011, nearly 894,000 borrowers have been refinanced through HARP and they (FHFA) feel easing the requirements will make it possible for many additional borrowers to refinance as well.
Among the experts at the forum was, of course, Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for NAR, who said he felt existing home sales would improve gradually, but unevenly. “If we just hold at the first-quarter sales pace of 5.1 million (home sales), sales this year would rise 4 percent, but the remainder of the year looks better,” Yun said. “We expect 5.3 million existing-home sales this year, up from 4.9 million in 2010, with additional gains in 2012 to about 5.6 million — that’s a sustainable level given the size of our population.” Continue reading “Housing and Economic Forecasts Point to Rising Activity and Flat Home Prices“
Lee Bentley Farkas, the former chairman of a private mortgage lending company, Taylor, Bean & Whitaker (TBW), was convicted today for his role in a more than $2.9 billion fraud scheme that contributed to the failures of Colonial Bank, one of the 25 largest banks in the United States in 2009, and TBW, one of the largest privately held mortgage lending companies in the United States in 2009. Continue reading “Former Chairman of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Convicted for $2.9 Billion Fraud Scheme That Contributed to the Failure of Colonial Bank“
Now, in this particular case, the board is using this as a scare tactic to try to convince the owners to vote to change by-laws to prohibit rentals (something they tried last year and failed at and something I have major issues with, but that’s a topic for another story..) but I realized this is a very real problem or concern for many condo-owners, boards and associations across the country so I thought I would gather and share some info on the issue. Continue reading “FHA Condominium Recertification Requirements“
When it comes to the meltdown in the housing market that has taken place over the past three years there has been no lack of finger pointing by many inside and outside the industry as to factors that either caused or contributed to the collapse of the housing market. Sub-prime lending, Wall Street, mortgage fraud, the mortgage industry, banks, community reinvestment act, real estate brokers and agents, fannie mae, freddie mac, federal government over-regulation, federal government under-regulation, appraisers, unemployment, the economy in general, “flipping”, sellers, buyers and more have been blamed in one way or another for the collapse. In my humble opinion and, based upon my 30+ years of experience in the industry, I would say all the aforementioned played a part in the collapse and certainly no one thing could have caused this mess on its own, it was a combination of several things that led up to the “perfect storm”. Continue reading “Making Appraisers the Scapegoat“
“Our military make sacrifices every day to protect our homes and families,” said Anthony Renzi, Executive Vice President of Single Family Portfolio Management at Freddie Mac. “This small act will protect financially troubled service members when they return from active duty by giving them more time to work with their lender to stay in their home.”
The National Association of REALTORS Pending Home Sales Index for October shows an increase of 10.4 percent in the index from the month before (seasonally adjusted), and a 20.5 percent decrease from a year ago. Continue reading “Pending home sales increase over 10 percent in October; Mortgage Interest Deduction vital to Recovery“
According the to the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), the largest obstacles to the recovery of the housing market are job creation and the availability of credit. At their board meeting last week, NAR approved a credit polity to urge the mortgage lending industry to “reassess and amend their policies so more qualified home buyers can become home owners.” Continue reading “REALTORS’ Say Jobs and Access to Credit Needed for Housing Recovery“ The National Association of Realtors® announced that it “strongly supports” the proposed guidance from the Federal Housing Finance Agency to prevent government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks from investing in mortgages encumbered by private transfer fee covenants. In a letter sent to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), NAR reiterated its opposition to these covenants, which developers often attach to a property to require payment of fees back to that developer each time the property is resold. These covenanted mandates are often extremely difficult to reverse once in place, and in many cases are attached to a deed for up to 99 years. Continue reading “REALTORS® Support Proposal to End Private Transfer Fees“  Dennis Norman In a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, John A. Courson, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said that the MBA “opposes the practice of private third parties, such as developers, builders, licensing companies and real estate brokers, imposing private transfer fee covenants on residential real estate for the purpose of extracting future income.” However, in his letter Mr. Courson goes on to say that the “MBA is concerned thatencumbering housing transactions with these types of PTFs will impede the marketability and affect the valuation of properties and thus the value of the loans and securities backed by such loans.” In addition, the MBA points out that “distinctions among PTFs (private transfer fees) are necessary” as they do not oppose private transfer fee covenants that are: Continue reading “Mortgage Bankers urge Feds not to ban all private transfer fees“  Dennis Norman The CEO of Freddie Mac, Ed Haldeman, published a blog post this week which said reports of mortgage fraud were on the rise; there were nearly 38,000 cases of mortgage in the first half of 2010 – a 13 percent increase over the same period in 2009.
Haldeman says that the fraudsters prey on the vulnerability of struggling borrowers by offering a quick fix to a homeowner who is under water and desperate. A common ploy for a scammer is to promise a struggling homeowner mortgage relief of modification of their loan. Continue reading “Four Tips for Avoiding Mortgage Fraud“ Dennis Norman Fannie Mae announced this week that it is expanding the Freddie Mac First Look Initiative so any home shopper can buy a HomeSteps® home as their primary residence during the first 15 days of the property’s listing without competition from investors. HomeSteps is the real estate sales unit of Freddie Mac and markets a nationwide selection of Freddie Mac-owned homes. Continue reading “Owner-occupants get first shot to buy Fannie Mae foreclosures; Investors must wait“ Dennis Norman Today the Federal Housing Finance Agency announce proposed guidance that would prohibit Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks from investing in mortgages with private transfer fee covenants. Considering that covers the lenders that originate, invest in or, or insure over 90 percent of the homes in the U.S. that pretty much puts the kibosh on financing a home with such a transfer fee. Continue reading “Private Transfer Fee Covenants Draw Fire From FHFA“  Dennis Norman A report just released by CoreLogic estimate the financial impact of short-sale fraud to be $310 million annually. It is estimated there is fraud in one in every 53 short sale transactions resulting in an unnecessary loss to the lender of $41,000 per transaction on average. Continue reading “Report Shows Fraud in Short-Sales Cost Lenders $310 Million Annually“  Dennis Norman According to a report issued by Radar Logic Incorporated government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) and Federal agencies involved in housing finance currently have an inventory of over 200,000 repossessed homes. Being the largest owner of foreclosed homes in the U.S. gives the government a lot of power and influence over the housing market for years to come as they will generate significant pressure on home prices as they sell off foreclosed homes in the coming years. Foreclosed homes currently sell at significant discounts to the unpaid balances of the mortgages they back, generating a loss for the seller (i.e., the lender, mortgage investor or government agency) at every sale. As Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) sell their REO (“real estate owned”) inventories for less than the book value on their loans, they generate billions in losses for taxpayers. When the huge numbers of government-insured mortgages in the intermediate stages of default or foreclosure are taken into account, losses from future government REO sales could reach hundreds of billions of dollars. “For over a year now we have been saying that the GSEs and other Federal agencies will play a critical role in the success or failure of the housing recovery due to their huge holdings of foreclosed homes,” said Michael Feder, President and CEO of Radar Logic. “Now their role is more critical than ever before. The potential cost to taxpayers resulting from the government’s current policies is enormous. We can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a better approach.” Highlights from the report:
Recent reports have shown that mortgage delinquencies may be leveling off, albeit at almost record levels, but this is the first step to the foreclosure rate declining which will help the housing market stabilize. Unfortunately with the number of current foreclosures as well as the gloomy projections for future foreclosures, it will be a while before this happens.
The inventory of Fannie and Freddie continue to increase, but their inventory is only a portion of the total foreclosures. The worst loans were made outside of Fannie and Freddie by banks, thrifts or other private label institutions. Most foreclosures are heavily concentrated in a few key states: Florida, Arizona, Nevada, California and Michigan. With unemployment hovering near 10%, the economic recovery so far is too fragile to expect mortgage rates to rise in the near future. St. Louis Mortgage Interest Rates – June 23, 2010 *
For more information or if you have questions on mortgage rates in St. Louis you may contact me by phone at my direct line, (314) 372-4319, email at rfishel@paramountmortgage.com or you can visit our company website at http://www.paramountmortgage.com.
*Note- The above rates are based upon a typical sale price of $187,500 with a 20% percent down payment leaving a loan amount of $150,000 to a borrower with a 720 credit score for a loan with no discount points charged. Rates and terms will vary depending upon loan amount, home value, credit and income of borrower. This information is provided by this author and this site for informative purposes only and is not warranted or guarteed in any way.
Dennis Norman UPDATE June 21, 2010- I said I would update this post after the proposed rules were published on the Federal Register with info on how to submit a comment -If you would like to comment, see the comment instructions in the Federal Register (I highlighted them) by clicking here -end of update. June 4, 2010Are they really going to repeat the same mistakes that helped cause this housing recession?I say this because of a release I received from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) last week announcing that the FHFA “has sent to the Federal Register a proposed rule implementing provisions of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) that establish a duty for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) to serve very low-, low- and moderate-income families in three specified underserved markets — manufactured housing, affordable housing preservation, and rural markets.” While the statement is a little ambiguous on the surface it sounds like a nice thought, “serve the underserved.” However, as I read on I couldn’t believe my eyes as I read other aspects of the proposed rule. The “Enterprises” (Fannie and Freddie) would be required to take actions to “improve the distribution of investment capital available for mortgage financing for underserved markets” and are expected to continue their support for affordable housing (again, something that sounds great, just depends how you plan to go about supporting “affordable housing”). The rule would establish a method to evaluate the Enterprises performance in these underserved markets for 2010 and subsequent years. Of the four criteria the enterprises are to be evaluated under, one really got my attention; “the development of loan products, more flexible underwriting guidelines, and other innovative approaches to providing financing“. WHAT?? More FLEXIBLE underwriting, INNOVATIVE approaches to provide financing? Isn’t this the stuff that got Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (not to mention thousands of homeowners) in trouble to start with? Now, I don’t claim to be an economist or even that smart for that matter, but this sure appears to me to be the Federal Government putting pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make loans they shouldn’t be making….again. I’m not saying that the pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make loans to borrowers that weren’t really qualified is the only cause of the housing bust as there were many contributors to it, but this was certainly one of them and definitely a large part of what led to their financial demise and need for a tax-payer bailout. A book I’ve read that I think has the most complete and thorough analysis of what caused the housing market to have it’s longest positive run only to be followed by a collapse is Thomas Sowells’ “The Housing Boom and Bust“. In his book Mr. Sowell says this about the housing bust and the demise of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; “in reality, government agencies not only approved the more lax standards for mortgage loan applicants, government officials were in fact the driving force behind the loosening of mortgage loan requirements.” So is this deja vu or what? Mr. Sowell goes on to say “the development of lax lending standards, both by banks and by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac standing behind the banks, came not from a lack of government regulation and oversight, but precisely as a result of government regulation and oversight, directed toward the politically popular goal of more ‘home ownership’ through “affordable housing,” especially for low-income home buyers. These lax lending standards were the foundation for a house of cards that was ready to collapse with a relatively small nudge.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears to me the government has opened the deck of cards and begun construction again. There will be a 45 day period for public comments once the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register. I just tried to access the website site and it is down so I don’t know if it’s published yet but will check again and update this post with info on how to comment on the rule if you like.
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