Archive for February, 2008
Friday, February 29th, 2008
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae may have
gotten
good news from their regulator which lifted the corporations'
portfolio caps, but their earnings reports for the year just ended were
pretty devastating. Read More Now
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Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday that Fannie Mae
is proposing to ban the use of appraisals by a lender's
employees or those arranged by mortgage brokers.
The proposed change would mean that Fannie Mae would no longer
authorize its lending partners to use appraisers employed by a
wholly owned subsidiary and, ...
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Thursday, February 28th, 2008
I can't decide what was more troublesome yesterday: the
comically uninformed questions put to Big Ben regarding
mortgage rates, or the comically inaccurate article
printed by CNBC on the same subject. Whatever the case, the media is
awash with analysts, experts, officials, and laypersons offering rather
strong opinions on a ...
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Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight
(OFHEO) announced Wednesday that it would be
lifting the caps it had imposed several years ago to
limit growth of Freddie Mac's and Fannie Mae's owned portfolios.
Each of the GSE's has also been under a consent order which required
them to, among other ...
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Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
The Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development jointly released their monthly report on new home sales early
Wednesday morning.
The report showed new home sales declined once again,
this time to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 588,000 units. At the
end of January there ...
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Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
Mortgage rates continued to grow in the most recent
week, now approaching very close to the level of interest
rates at the beginning of the year.
Mortgage application volume decreased...
Read More Now
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Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Two reports on house prices were released on Tuesday
and neither was happy news for homeowners or for the real estate
industry.
The S&P/Case Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index
showed that the decline in house prices accelerated in the fourth quarter
of 2007 with a...
Read More Now
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Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Despite the many programs gearing up or in place to help homeowners
resolve problems with their mortgages, foreclosure related
activities continued to increase in January. But, perhaps
partially because of these programs, the rate of increase appears to be
slowing from the pace of previous months.
Read More Now
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Monday, February 25th, 2008
Existing-home sales including single family
residences, condominiums, townhomes, and co-ops continued to move
downward in January, as did their median prices according to the monthly
survey released on Monday by the National Association of Realtors.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said many
potential buyers remain on the sidelines. "Subprime loans and ...
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Friday, February 22nd, 2008
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced a massive
program to address a number of aspects of the housing slump in the state
which has probably been harder hit by its effects than any other.
The various initiatives will use a variety of state and federal funds
including a $5.6 million federal ...
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