Tag Archives: Refinance

After slipping in October, purchase and issuance activity picked up again, coming to $29.5 billion, Freddie Mac reported. That was offset by an increase in sales and liquidations, which whittled the portfolio's monthly increase to about $614 million. In other monthly changes, the unpaid principal balance (UPB) of Freddie Mac's mortgage-related investments portfolio fell by approximately $4.7 billion last month, a negative annualized growth rate of 14.0 percent.

In a town hall style meeting in Chicago Tuesday, Mel Watt, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, blamed fear of being taken in by a scam for eligible homeowner’s reluctance to take advantage of the Home Affordable Refinance program.

GFS Capital Holdings, formerly Greenlight Financial Services, settled a claim with HUD regarding discrimination of women on maternity leave. The company agreed to pay a total of $48,000 to individuals against which it allegedly discriminated. HUD investigated Greenlight after a family complained the company denied their refinance loan application because the wife was on maternity leave at the time.

Freddie Mac released its monthly volume summary for May 2014, tracking information on the company's mortgage-related portfolio, securities issuance, risk management, delinquencies, debt activities, and other investments. The summary found that overall, Freddie Mac's total mortgage portfolio decreased at an annualized rate of 2.1 percent in May.

In a report released Monday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have reached the milestone of 3 million refinances under the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP)."Three million HARP refinances is an important accomplishment and represents real help to families and communities still struggling as a result of the mortgage crisis," said FHFA Director Mel Watt.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) issued new guidelines for manually underwritten loan applications that should improve a lender's ability to evaluate borrowers' risk and reduce credit requirement ""overlays"" that exceed FHA's lending standards. The agency says the move will help restore its depleted Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund from which it pays claims without forcing lenders to over-tighten credit standards.

The percentage of homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth has declined to less than 12 percent as of the third quarter of this year, according to Lender Processing Services' (LPS) Mortgage Monitor report. While the increasing number of homeowners rising above water is good news for the market, LPS detects some tumultuous seas ahead as a cloud of problem home equity loans forms on the horizon.

Fixed mortgage rates increased sharply this week while reports on adjustable-rate mortgages were mixed. Freddie Mac puts the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 4.46 percent for the week ending December 5, up from 4.29 percent last week. Bankrate's weekly national survey showed a rise of 11 basis points for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to 4.55 percent. Economists pinned the increases on encouraging growth in new home sales and private jobs.

Independent mortgage bankers are a growing segment and they're poised to take over even more market share as larger institutions trim their mortgage businesses. The five biggest banks were responsible for 53.2 percent of new mortgage activity in the United States in 2012, down from nearly two-thirds in 2010. According to a recent FBR Capital Markets forecast, that share could shrink to 40 percent by 2014.

To address widespread negative equity, at least 15 cities and counties are considering using eminent domain to seize underwater homes and lower borrowers' mortgage principal balances, according to the Urban Institute. The institute conducted a study to see what commonalities these communities share and found that all 15 suffer from high levels of poverty and unemployment, stagnant incomes, and low housing prices.