Tag Archives: HARP

Freddie Mac pulled in a net profit of $11 billion for 2012, significant increase from the annual net loss of $5.3 billion in 2011. In addition, Freddie Mac's fourth quarter net income climbed to $4.5 billion, up from $2.9 billion in the third quarter of last year. According to the company's earnings release, the increase reflects a decrease in delinquent single-family loans, improved national home prices, and a higher income tax benefit. ""It's clear from our earnings that the housing market has turned a corner and that our work to minimize legacy losses and build a strong new book of business is paying off,"" said Freddie Mac CEO Donald H. Layton in a release.

As of November 2012, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have refinanced more than 2 million loans through the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) reported Tuesday. According to FHFA, nearly 130,000 homeowners refinanced their mortgages through HARP in November alone, making it the second biggest month for HARP activity in 2012 (behind June's 137,000 HARP refinances). In addition, HARP volume represented 23 percent of total refinance volume in November.

Foreclosure activity was somewhat mixed in the five Western states--Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington--observed by ForeclosureRadar over the month of January. Notably, California foreclosure sales were down in January, despite a past trend of an uptick in the month following a decline in December. However, this January, both notices of default and notices of foreclosure sale declined in January--down 60.5 percent and 34.83 percent, respectively, over the month. Adequate inventory is necessary for a recovery to take place, but is lacking in much of the state, according to the analytics firm.

Two U.S. senators reintroduced legislation designed to open up competition and limit barriers to refinance for qualified homeowners who are otherwise left without options. Senators Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) and Barbara Boxer (D-California) reintroduced The Responsible Homeowner Refinancing Act of 2013, a bill that would allow homeowners to take advantage of low interest rates by reducing or removing certain refinance requirements.

Coinciding with Wednesday's House committee hearing on the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, a boutique investment firm, released its predictions of what actions the government is and is not likely to take to further assist the housing market. Generally speaking, ""any large program expansions which require congressional approval are, in our view, not likely to go far,"" said Brian Gardner, SVP of Washington research at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

Homeowners who refinanced their mortgage loans in the fourth quarter of 2012 reduced their interest rates by an average of 33 percent, a record savings not seen in 27 years of observance, according to Freddie Mac. ""On average, borrowers who refinanced reduced their interest rate by about 1.8 percentage points,"" said Frank Nothaft, VP and chief economist at Freddie Mac. This translates to about $3,600 in annual savings on a $200,000 loan, according to Nothaft.

While the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) has undergone some tweaks and changes to broaden eligibility, a petition is seeking to make the program available to more underwater homeowners and to allow homeowners to refinance under the program more than once. The petition specifically states, ""We Petition the Obama Administration to: Make a formal request to the FHFA to eliminate the securitization cut off date for HARP eligibility and allow re-HARPing."" As of January 21, the petition has received more than 800 signatures.

As home prices increase, more borrowers are rising out of negative equity. Recent data from CoreLogic revealed about 100,000 borrowers moved out of negative equity during the third quarter of 2012, bringing the total number of homeowners who transitioned from negative to positive territory in 2012 to 1.4 million so far.

Year-to-date, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have refinanced nearly 800,000 loans through the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), the Federal Housing Finance Agency reported Thursday. Since HARP's 2009 inception, the program has refinanced 1.8 million loans, with 790,619 of those loans refinanced in 2012 as of October. In October alone, more than 81,613 homeowners were refinanced through the program. Underwater loans continued to find relief through the program, with a little less than half of the loans refinanced in October in negative equity.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac refinanced more than 90,000 mortgage loans through the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) in September, bringing the program's total reach to 1.7 million since its inception in 2009, according to the latest refinance report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The rate of HARP refinances has increased since the program was revised in the fall of 2011 to expand borrower eligibility. Year-to-date, 709,000 loans have been refinanced through HARP, already far exceeding last year's total of about 400,000.