Smart Borrower Blog

Archive for May, 2008

News From The Feeds

Although I get a lot of information for the MM blog from Google, yahoo and Reuters, I also subscribe to several RSS feeds through Google Reader to keep myself inf0ormed.   It just makes good sense if you want to keep up with the market all in one place.   I get a lot of good info in my email inbox, but the RSS feeds are also a good resource.   One feed, from Mortgage News Daily, gives me a lot of good resources to blog about.   My search of the feeds today was no exception. MND reports that... more »

PMI Sees Rising Defaults

We all know about private insured mortgages.   You know the ones - people buy into a home and don’t have enough for a down payment, so the mortgage insurance guarantees the bank payment if there is default. Seems that there is also trouble in this market, with Mortgage Insurance Co’s of America reporting 73,880 insured borrowers at least 60 days late on payments in April.   This is an increase up from up from 43,161 a year ago.   These figures reflect both newly reported defaults for the month, as well as previously unreported defaults by one of the... more »

Home Prices Continue To Fall

House prices continue to fall across the nation. Studies by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight show that this has happened in 43 states with California and Nevada taking the biggest hit at more than 8%. Prices sank 3.1% in the first three months of the year. This is on the heels of 13 years of price increases. Mortgage originations are expected to fall 18% this year from the levels of 2007. The slump in housing continues. Many new build outs are sitting unfinished, and builders are having problems moving what they have. Consumer confidence is at a very... more »

The Decline of Franklin Bank

No one can really predict the way the mortgage market will go.   Many economists and analysts can crunch numbers and read predications in what the market is up to, but there are just too many factors involved to take a clear cut snapshot of what really goes on. Case in point - Lewis Ranieri, of the small but thus far secure and prestigious Franklin Bank.   Mr. Ranieri is allegedly the father of security backed mortgages, and has been espousing the dangers in the market for some time now.   He has had a ton of speaking engagements, and... more »

Mortgage Applications Decline

The market took a real beating this week - according to the Nightly News due to rising oil prices - and we once again see a decline in mortgage applications.   Not surprising here.   Stats show that they fell 7.8% for the week ending May 116th.   The Mortgage Bankers Association’s application index fell to 621.6 from 674.4 the previous week as both refinance and purchase volume declined.   There appears to be no bottom yet, and I don’t really expect to see one until some time near the end of 2009.   Surely, it will take that long... more »

Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America

I’ve written about contacting your mortgage holder and trying to make arrangements to stop foreclosure on your property.   This is a reasonable idea, and one everyone that is even half way responsible would make.   But how effective is this process?   On the Union Leader of New Hampshire website today was an article about a woman, Zena Collins, who was in great financial trouble.   It had come to the point where she was using battery powered lights and showering in cold water because her electricity was shut off.   She was of course struggling with making house... more »

New Home Construction

We see an upturn in new home construction for the month of April, the first increase in some time.   Reports from the Commerce Department Friday give the figure of housing construction rising by 8.2 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.03 million units.   The painful housing slump is far from over, though, as a record flood of foreclosures continues to plague the nation.   One reason analysts are seeing in the rise in housing is the need for apartments - a sign that people are losing homes and needing a place to live.... more »

PennyMac

It had to happen - with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae all the news today, we now see a company, Private National Mortgage Acceptance Company, LLC, that is addressing the dislocations in the U.S. mortgage market.   Nicknamed PennyMac, they are investing in and servicing residential mortgage assets on behalf of private investors.   Headed by Stanford Kurland, former president of Countrywide Financial Corp., their focus is to work with homeowners that are in trouble with their mortgage, and are going to attempt to work with these home owners to try to get them back up to speed and paying.... more »

Upside Down Homes

An interesting thing is occurring.   Property values are dropping as everyone knows.   What effect does this have on the market?   I did some checking today, and here is what I found. If you bought a home in 2006-2007, the property has decreased in value.   This affects 77% of buyers.   If you bought in 2007, the percentage is 71%.   Market correction?   To me, this is.   Many homes have been overvalued for a very long time, and this can be seen in locales such as SoCal and the Florida area.   In a news... more »

Jingle Mail

I’m a big fan of The New York Times and LA Times, and read them daily.   Being a freelance writer has the disadvantage of not getting out into the world much, and these fine folk keep me informed, along with Reuters, Google and Yahoo.   I had wrote previously about people walking away from their homes, and was prompted by an article I read today in The NY Times that drove me to comment on it today. In my article I talked about people walking away from their homes, and what was causing them to do so.   It... more »