News

PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. is tempering its expectations for the housing market. Although the industry is finally beginning to see some light through the debris of the national mortgage crisis, the California-based company says 2010 has gotten off to a slow start, putting the brakes on any projections for a swift recovery. PMI projects existing home sales to reach 5.50 million units by the end of the year, and prices to end 2010 at about the same level they started.

In its home price forecast released last week, University Financial Associates (UFA) put things into perspective for Detroit, a city besieged by unemployment and plummeting property values, and riddled with foreclosed homes. UFA says in the Motor City, 10 years of real price gains were erased in just 4 years.

Although still favorable, profit margins for independent mortgage bankers and subsidiaries fell in the fourth quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported in its most recent Quarterly Mortgage Bankers Performance Report. According to the report, independent mortgage bankers and subsidiaries made an average profit of $890 on each loan they originated in the fourth quarter of 2009, down from $902 per loan in the third quarter of 2009 but up from $296 in the fourth quarter of 2008.

First American CoreLogic, a Santa Ana, California-based provider of advanced property and ownership information, analytics, and services, announced Tuesday that its LoanSafe Fraud Manager is being implemented by San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, one of the industry's top mortgage originators.

While distressed housing conditions may seem like the perfect storm for investors to cash in on a buyer's market, a new report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reveals that the percentage of home sales last year falling into the category of residential investment property was down significantly. Based on NAR's study, investment-home sales dropped 16 percent between 2008 and 2009, and sold for a median price of $105,000.

On Monday, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) announced new rules to further reduce and better manage counterparty risks to its insurance funds. These regulations will increase the net worth requirements of FHA-approved lenders, strengthen lender approval criteria, and make lenders liable for the oversight of mortgage brokers.

Millions of families across the nation have been adversely affected by the foreclosure crisis, but the majority of Americans still have a positive attitude towards homeownership, Fannie Mae found in its National Housing Survey. The survey, conducted between December 2009 and January 2010, polled homeowners and renters to gauge the public's current attitudes toward housing in light of the current foreclosure crisis. The results of the survey were released Tuesday, showing that the dream of homeownership hasn't died.

Federal regulators and economist have been warning the industry, the public, and the administration for a good many months now about the devastation a commercial real estate (CRE) meltdown could leave in its wake. On Tuesday, a gentleman personifying both factions of these red-flag-raisers - William Emmons, economist and assistant vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis - spoke to attendees at The Five Star Institute's Commercial Default 360 event in Dallas.

Phoenix-based Sharp Equity has begun offering title insurance for foreclosed homes purchased at trustee auctions in Arizona. The company says it's the first in the state to do so, and touts its approach as removing the last major risk from trustee sales and opening up the foreclosure market to the general public.

Prudential Mortgage Capital Company and Johnson Capital announced last week that the two companies have joined forces to originate and service multifamily loans for Freddie Mac under the Program Plus and Targeted Affordable loan programs offered by the GSE. The companies' joint venture, Prudential Johnson Apartment Capital Express, will originate multifamily loans from $5 million and above in Arizona, California, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.