It's going to be an interesting spring.
Rising home prices and gradually increasing mortgage rates have 75% of Americans stating that it is smarter to buy now than to wait a year, according to a recent study by Trulia. Conversely, fewer than 1 in 3, 32% to be exact, Americans believe it would be better to sell now than to wait another year. ...
The dust is settling from the housing crisis and mortgage lenders are easing back into lending. And now the amount of loans falling into foreclosure is dwindling, turning the spotlight back to mortgage originations.
During the stormy financial crisis, banks that were not up to standard were filtered out of the market. Since then, other banks have decided to pull back or even out of the industry altogether.
In a conference call for Citigroup ...
In meetings with customers and prospects, I like to ask: What do you want from your LOS system?
These days, typical responses tend to be automated compliance, greater productivity, measurable ROI and maybe the ability to "turn on" new channels, like correspondent. But for some time, I've had this nagging suspicion that there’s one more wish-list item that they’d like to add, but are too polite to say. And that is: "I’d like my next LOS to be my last."
Understandable, really,...
Pre-purchase financial counseling is getting better all the time, at least that’s what the latest analysis by Freddie Mac shows.
In fact, pre-purchase counseling may reduce the likelihood of a first-time homebuyer becoming seriously delinquent by 29%.
By contrast, an earlier study of similar mortgages financed in the ‘90s estimated that pre-purchase counseling for first-time buyers reduced serious delinquencies by an average of 19%.
Furthermore, the new...
The guessing game of who will succeed current acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Ed DeMarco continues.
The next victim of the rumor mill is Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics.
Zandi was an economic adviser to the 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and currently speaks...
One of my favorite movies, The Graduate, has a famous scene in which this pompous older gentleman takes a young Dustin Hoffman aside and says: “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word… Plastics.”
I couldn’t get that line out of my head as I arrived at the Mortgage Bankers Association National Technology in Mortgage Banking Conference & Expo, which started today. Because there was one word that was on most attendees’ minds: Not plastics, but “...
Randomly pick five articles about the housing market and at least one is guaranteed to be about the new regulations and changes coming from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Since the housing burst in 2008, all eyes have turned to the banks that are “too big to fail.” The CFPB has piled on, creating new regulations and requirements for lenders to ensure another housing bust does not occur.
In a conference call regarding the company’s 2013 first quarter...
There was a time when the covered bond discussion felt important. There was even a chance a covered bond framework could happen.
The bonds, backed by corporate debt and high-quality mortgages, could play a role in the reformation of the nation's housing finance system, its supporters claim.
But now that conversation feels like it will be on hold for a long time.
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Here’s the deal: home inventory is low, mortgage rates are still amazing and consumer confidence is looking up. Mix ‘em altogether and you have a sizzling hot seller’s market.
In fact, the National Association of Realtors says competing offers for the same homes are rising in more markets. And Freddie Mac predicts that interest rates will likely go lower this spring, and that compared to 2012, home sales will jump 10% in 2013.
This is a market that screams for...
Is there anyone who can take the activities of the Federal Reserve quantitative easing policies and correlate it directly to the so-called housing recovery?
The American Enterprise Institute knows there is, and his name is Christopher Whalen, an investment banker at Carrington Investment Services.
In a talk at the institute Whalen disputes the benefits of quantitative easing, citing a saturation of Keynesian ideologies with a quickly diffusing power of federal cash flow.
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