MLS Real Estate & Listings Blog

The Bush administration has put forward a sweeping plan for reorganizing the regulation of the financial system that would include national licensing standards for mortgage brokers and the elimination of federally chartered thrifts.

Many of the major aspects of the plan unveiled today by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would require congressional approval, and are not likely to be achieved during President Bush’s final year in office, Paulson acknowledged.  more…

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Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson announced today he will step down next month in the face of investigations involving allegations of favoritism and calls from Democrats for his resignation.

Jackson’s resignation, effective April 18, leaves open the possibility that HUD will be led by an interim chief in the final months of a lame-duck administration, even as the department implements a major expansion of FHA loan programs and pushes for an overhaul of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, or RESPA.  more…

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In a reversal of past policy, federal regulators say they won’t lower the $417,000 conforming loan limit to keep it in line with falling home prices.

Adopting a stance taken by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the housing downturn of the early 1990s, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight has ruled that the conforming loan limit will move in only one direction: up.  more…

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Radian Guaranty Inc. is the latest private mortgage insurer to tighten underwriting standards, with a moratorium on loans with down payments of less than 3 percent kicking in March 31, and a ban on stated-income and stated-asset loans scheduled to begin April 30.

Like competitors including PMI and MGIC, Radian has also adopted more stringent standards in declining markets where prices are falling.  more…

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The Federal Reserve will hold public hearings next month in Los Angeles and Chicago before ruling on Bank of America Corp.’s planned acquisition of Countrywide Financial Corp.

The meetings will be held on April 22 in Chicago and April 28 and 29 in Los Angeles (see announcement).  more…

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Long-term mortgage rates this week were mixed, with the 30-year fixed rate falling and the 15-year rate rising, Freddie Mac reported today.

The average rate on 30-year fixed loans dipped from 5.87 percent to 5.85 percent, while the 15-year average rose from 5.27 percent to 5.34 percent. By contrast, a year ago the 30-year averaged 6.16 percent and the 15-year averaged 5.86 percent.  more…

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It’s easy to complain about government paperwork, but sometimes something as seemingly simple as a new form can be worth much more than the paper it’s printed on. Such is the new standardized and borrower-friendly Good Faith Estimate that has been proposed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.  more…

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Mortgage application volume jumped 48.1 percent last week following the Federal Reserve’s move to cut two key short-term interest rates, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported today.

According to MBA, the seasonally adjusted increase was led by an 82.2 percent spike in the index that tracks refinance applications, followed by a 10.6 percent gain in the purchase-loan index.  more…

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Federal officials announced the indictments of 20 people Thursday in two California-based foreclosure rescue and equity-stripping schemes that allegedly netted more than $12 million from more than 100 victims who were left without their homes.

A 33-year-old Los Angeles resident, Charles Head, is accused of orchestrating both schemes, which allegedly used straw buyers to obtain title to the homes of troubled borrowers.  more…

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More than 8,000 members of the Federal Home Loan Bank System will be allowed to double their purchases of mortgage-backed securities backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, providing more than $100 billion in additional liquidity over the next two years, regulators said today.  more…

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Some progress this week by the authorities has helped mortgage rates fall to the 5.75 percent area for the first time since January. However, the improvement is limited to vanilla "agency" loans, the jumbo and even agency ARM markets still broken. The credit crunch is still alive, growing tighter, and the financial system is unstable.  more…

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Long-term mortgage rates tumbled this week after the Fed cut a key short-term interest rate and on news that inflation in February was weaker than expected, Freddie Mac reported today.

The average rate on 30-year fixed mortgages dropped to 5.87 percent from last week’s 6.13 percent, and the average 15-year fixed rate plunged to 5.27 percent from 5.6 percent.

To qualify for these rates, borrowers must pay points, or fees that lenders charge for loan processing expressed as a percent of the loan, which this week averaged 0.5 on the 30- and 15-year loans.  more…

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California’s foreclosure rate fell in February compared to January but was up from the fourth-quarter 2007 average, research and data company ForeclosureRadar reported Wednesday.

Foreclosure sales at auction in the state fell 15 percent compared to January, with 16,931 sales at a combined loan value of $6.85 billion. Notices of default dropped 7.6 percent to 37,362, and notices of trustee sale (which set the auction date and time) fell 20 percent.  more…

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Thornburg Mortgage Inc.’s five largest creditors have agreed to give the "super jumbo" lender a one-year reprieve from margin calls if it can raise nearly $1 billion in seven business days.

Thornburg is offering 12 percent interest to anybody willing to buy notes that will mature on April 1, 2015. The notes would be convertible into common stock at 75 percents per share, the lender said in a regulatory filing.  more…

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Federal regulators say they’re giving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac additional leeway to buy up to $200 billion in mortgages and mortgage-backed securities by relaxing stringent capital requirements put in place in 2004 in the wake of management and accounting scandals.  more…

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Despite a considerable drop in long-term mortgage rates, borrowers last week were not breaking down the doors of lenders trying to get a piece of the action, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported today.

According to MBA, home loan application volume fell 2.9 percent last week on a seasonally adjusted basis from the previous week, led by a 4.6 percent decline in the refinance index and a 1 percent drop in the index that tracks purchase loans.  more…

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Private mortgage insurer PMI Group Inc. acknowledged it will need to raise "significant additional capital" in order to continue writing new business after posting a $1 billion net loss in the fourth quarter — much of it through its ownership stake in troubled bond insurer FGIC Corp.

Although PMIs own mortgage insurance operations generated a $236 million net loss in the final quarter of 2007, it was the company’s 42 percent stake in FGIC that put the biggest dent in the company’s bottom line, accounting for $776.1 million of the net loss for the quarter. PMI’s net loss for the full year was $915.3 million.  more…

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In an emergency move to prop up credit markets, the Federal Reserve cut the discount rate to 3.25 percent over the weekend and expanded the list of banks and financial institutions that can borrow money at that rate.

The Fed also announced Sunday that it was standing behind J.P. Morgan Chase’s move to buy troubled investment firm Bear Stearns Cos by providing up to $30 billion in financing that protects J.P. Morgan from losses.  more…

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A private equity firm headed by billionaire Wilbur Ross would become the second-largest servicer of subprime loans — collecting payments on about half a million mortgages — if it closes a deal to acquire the servicing business of Option One Mortgage Corp.  more…

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A top Democrat wants to give the Federal Housing Administration authorization to provide an additional $300 billion in mortgage guarantees to help refinance up to 2 million loans in cases where lenders agree to "substantial" principal write-downs.

A bill proposed by Rep. Barney Frank would require that lenders — or the investors who hold the rights to service a mortgage — agree to write-downs large enough to insulate FHA from losses and provide a "meaningful reduction" in a troubled borrower’s monthly payments.  more…

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