March 17, 2011 (Chris Moore) Freddie Mac today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), which shows rates edging slightly higher from the previous week influenced by inflationary and ongoing geopolitical concerns. Rates still at historically low levels. Read more...
March 24, 2011 (Jeff Alan) House Republican Jeb Hensarling of Texas has introduced the first bill to scale back Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and privatize the government-sponsored enterprises within the next five years. The bill calls for eliminating the government’s role in the two mortgage giants and the mortgage market. It also calls for [...]
March 24, 2011 (Chris Moore) Last week we reported that Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli stated that his state was among “at least a dozen” that doesn’t back the Obama Administration’s proposed foreclosure settlement, now three more Republican Attorneys General have come forward and joined Cuccinelli expressing their displeasure with parts of the plan that [...]
March 24, 2011 (Chris Moore) Sales of new single family homes plummeted by 16.9 percent in February, compared to January, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 250,000 according to estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). However, there is a huge asterisk next to that [...]
March 23, 2011 (Shirley Allen) According to the data collected on March 22, 2010, for LendingTree’s Weekly Mortgage Rate Pulse, average home loan rates offered by network lenders was 5.02 percent (5.22% APR) for 30-year fixed mortgages, which is down from 5.08 percent from the previous report, 4.15 percent (4.46% APR) for 15-year fixed mortgages, [...]
March 23, 2011 (Chris Moore) The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 18, 2011. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 2.7 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from last week. Read more...
March 23, 2011 (Shirley Allen) The onslaught of bad economic news has apparently affected homeowners moods as pessimism about the recovery of home values in the short term has grown, as less than half of the nations homeowners now expect the value of their homes to go up in the next five years, according to [...]
March 23, 2011 (Chris Moore) Legislation backed by Scottsdale Republican Sen. Michelle Reagan proposes to allow homeowners who have underwater mortgages to bypass banks and use private investors to refinance their mortgages allowing investors to benefit by earning interest paid by reliable borrowers, while homeowners benefit by lowering their monthly payments and possibly lowering their [...]
March 23, 2011 (Shirley Allen) The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) reports that U.S. home prices declined by 0.3 percent in January 2011 compared to December 2010. The agency’s House Price Index (HPI) also revealed that prices were 3.9 percent lower than a year earlier in January of 2010. Read more...
