Government

Freddie Mac released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey on Thursday, which showed that mortgage interest rates rose this week for both long- and short- term home loan products. The GSE attributed the increase to recently issued reports which signaled optimism that the national economy may be starting to turn around.

Lenders One Mortgage Cooperative, a national alliance of mortgage bankers, announced Tuesday that one of its members – Iowa-based Dubuque Bank & Trust (DB&T) – was the first institution in the country to sell a Refi Plus loan to Fannie Mae under the administration’s Home Affordable Refinance Program.

Banks continued to tighten lending standards during the first quarter of the year, according to the Federal Reserve’s senior loan officer survey published on Monday. The central bank’s first quarter lending review showed that 50 percent of U.

Regulators were supposed to release the findings of their stress tests on the nation’s largest lenders today, May 4, but the Federal Reserve is postponing the public announcement until later this week, presumably Thursday.

Jacksonville, Florida’s Lender Processing Services (LPS), Inc. released its latest LPS Mortgage Monitor this week, which provides mortgage industry performance indicators as of March month-end. Among the findings, LPS reported that the number of newly delinquent loans declined in March to 7.

The first 100 days of President Barack Obama’s administration have been marked by pressure to stabilize and reverse the nation’s financial crisis, and in doing so, establish regulatory reform within the financial and lending communities.

The U.S. Senate has voted down legislation that would allow bankruptcy court judges to modify the interest rate, terms, or even principal balance owed on primary-residence mortgages. After passing by a good margin in the House in early March, the cramdown bill failed in the Senate on Thursday by a vote of 45 to 51.

Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), submitted a proposed rule to the Federal Register this week to revise the GSEs’ housing goals for the year.

The New York Federal Reserve Bank purchased $23.142 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from government agencies this week. Of the Fed’s new commitment to buy $1.25 trillion in MBS this year, its purchases now stand at $404 billion.

The government has said its Home Affordable Refinance Program will lower monthly mortgage payments for four to five million homeowners. The initiative targets those home loans that are held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the administration has expanded the eligibility pool by allowing borrowers to refinance even if they owe 5 percent more than the home’s current market value.