sharexy

Friday, October 18, 2013

Housing markets slowing down, but it's the cool season.


Shared by Uros Kralj
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Rates Up, But Trending Down
 Right now (mortgage interest) rates are still only marginally above the lows that we were seeing during the first half of this year. We'll see what the economic data brings to us hopefully next week.
Shared by Geoff Smith in Weekly Market Report
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The seasonal slow down for home buying has begun.  Even so, we are nearing the pre-housing crisis home values.  Interest rates declined from 4.5% to 4.3%.
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According to CBS MoneyWatch, home values are finally starting to cool off after a year of explosive growth comes to a close.
“Far from being a negative sign, we're relieved to see more noticeable signs of cooling in the market," Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries said in a release. "If home values continued to rise as they have, relatively unchecked, we would almost certainly be headed into another bubble cycle, and nobody wants that.” HousingWire
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Fannie Mae's National Housing Survey findings show “Hispanics are more likely than the general population” to choose owning over renting. -- Amilda Dymi
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Shared by Uros Kralj
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Nat'l Real Estate Post:
It seems that Freddie and Fannie may be set for a reprieve.  Congress is reconsidering cutting loose the GSE's.  That is a good step. 
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"Increasing home prices over the past 18 months combined with decreasing foreclosures have created a market less favorable to the high quantity of middle- to low-end bread-and-butter flips that we saw late last year and early this year," said Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac. --  Brena Swanson in HousingWire
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Mortgage servicers modified 67,000 home loans in August, up 8% month-over-month, bringing the total amount of loans modified since 2007 to 5.4 million, Hope Now said Wednesday. -- Christina Mlynski in HousingWire
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One in five mortgages originated today would fail the litmus test for obtaining heightened legal protections under the qualified mortgage rule’s safe harbor provision, according to a test trial conducted by ComplianceEase. ( This means that mortgage companies will go out of business and the price of getting a mortgage will rise.  Fewer people will qualify to buy homes.) -- Keri Ann Panchuck in HousingWire
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Shared by Uros Kralj
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Economists and analysts from nearly 40 of the country's leading real estate organizations say there will be continued improvement in residential real estate, commercial mortgage-backed securities and industrial sectors. --




According to The Wall Street Journal, real estate asking prices have not been largely affected by the government shutdown. Besides asking prices, the housing market remains uncomfortably tied to Washington D.C.
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Jill Pierce is Team Leader for RealEstateAuctions.com

Monday, October 14, 2013

Appraising crime scenes.


Town hall, Rostock, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany shared by Uros Kralj
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Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans: With the shutdown, we may see delays, but not a complete stop to FHA loan closings. A report from the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) has stated that FHA's Office of Single Family Housing will remain open for business, albeit with a smaller staff. The office will continue to endorse loans and it doesn't expect the impact on the housing market to be "significant, as long as the shutdown is brief." -Sonja Bullard in Angel Oak Weekly, originally shared by Brady Webb
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Fannie Creates Floating Rate Multifamily Deals for Investors. - Origination News.
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Last year, nearly 3,000 different multifamily lenders provided a total of $146.1 billion in new mortgages for apartment buildings containing five or more units, the Mortgage Bankers Association said. -- Christina Mlynski in HousingWire
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A building that plays music when it rains.  Dresden, Germany
Originally shared by Secret of Funny Laughter. 
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According to the New York Times, mortgages are easy to come by as long as you have superior credit. A recent Ellie Mae analysis found that the average FICO scored of loans closed in August was 734 for approved borrowers, down from an average of 748 last year.
Lenders are also approving more loans for those whose credit scores are below 700, according to Jonathan Corr, the president of Ellie Mae. “About 31 percent of loans in August had scores less than 700, compared to 15 percent a year ago,” he said.
HousingWire
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Shared by Uros Kralj
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Remember a dead fish can float down stream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.  WC Fields.
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Crime scenes only temporarily reduce property values, he(Randall Bell) says, recommending living on site or renting for 2-5 years. He also advises against demolition, since the stigma tends to attach to the land, not the building.  -- Shared by Xavier de Buck
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Jill Pierce is Team Leader with RealEstateAuctions.com

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Mineral Rights and the need for lawyers.


Shared by Uros Kralj
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Mortgage applications increased 1.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier in the Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly survey for the week ending Oct. 4 as lower rates continued to shift some companies’ purchase-refi loan mixes.
On an unadjusted basis, the MBA’s overall index increased 1%. Refinances jumped 3% and are at their highest level since the week ending Aug. 9. Seasonally adjusted purchases decreased 1%, while unadjusted purchases also decreased 1% week-to-week, and were 6% lower than the same week one year ago. For the second consecutive week, unadjusted purchases were lower compared to the same week one year ago. -- Bonnie Sinnock in Origination News.
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The biggest thing the government shutdown has done to paralyze mortgage rates is postponing the release of economic data.  The Fed's ongoing bond buying stimulus program has kept interest rates low.  Every time good economic data is released, investors assume the Fed will begin tapering the program and rates go up.  When bad economic data is released, investors assume the Fed will maintain the program and rates go up.  Apparently when NO economic data is released, rates don't move. -- Geoff Smith in Weekly Market Report.
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Reuters launched a special report on a new phenomenon – one in which developers and homebuilders are silently keeping ownership of minerals located under various properties. This strategy allows firms to cash in on new drilling technologies, while preventing the new homeowners from taking a share.
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In most states, sellers aren't legally required to disclose to home buyers whether they are severing the mineral rights to a property. Builders sometimes flag the move in sales contracts or deeds and other documents they are required to file with local authorities. But buyers don't necessarily review their paperwork very closely, especially if, as real-estate agents say happens often, they don't hire a lawyer to help them with the transaction.-- HousingWire
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As the industry knows all too well at this point, new rules for mortgage lending are set to go into effect in January as part of the Qualified Mortgage rule under Frank-Dodd.
One of them, the so-called 3 Percent Test, is gaining some attention -- fees on QM-eligible loans need to be below 3 percent of the mortgage amount, lest the mortgage be cast as high-cost. --HousingWire
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Overall residential shadow inventory, as of July 2013, was 1.9 million homes, according to CoreLogic. That’s the lowest shadow inventory tally reported since August 2008. -- Carrie Bay in DS News
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According to Wes Moss, now is the time to buy in the stock market because it is primed to finish the year at a record high.
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Forum Romanum shared by Uros Kralj
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September foreclosure activity falls 27% year over year. --HousingWire.
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Jill Pierce is Team Leader for RealEstateAuctions.com


Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Gov't shutdown not hurting home sales, yet.


Frozen sauna in Estonia shared by Elisa Peroni
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With respect to the future of Fannie and Freddie, each should remain as slimmed down and conservative government agencies restricted to serving low-to-moderate income borrowers, as originally intended. FHA needs a top-to-bottom review and overhaul to put its operations back on a firmer footing, with tighter underwriting standards and profit goals limited to growing reserves to adequate levels.   Mark Riedy, former president, chief operating officer and a director for Fannie Mae http://www.housingwire.com/articles/27277-former-fannie-president-says-housing-programs-need-overhaul
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The Stock Market IS NOT crashing
Wall Street is forming a consensus around similar scenarios.
This would mean we avoid the apocalyptic consequences of default, but the shutdown is still a big problem. Bank of America Merrill Lynch economists Ethan Harris and Michael Hanson lowered their U.S. growth forecasts and others are doing the same.
Harris and Hanson had previously projected Q4 Gross Domestic Product would grow at a 2.5% annualized pace. They now believe the effects of the government shutdown will push GDP growth down to 2.0%.
They also raise a good point: The muted market reaction may actually extend the shutdown. If the Dow were crashing and Treasury rates skyrocketing, the public would put pressure on elected officials to settle their differences. (In tomorrow morning's edition, James DiGeorgia focuses on how the shutdown is shaping Virginia's upcoming gubernatorial election.) -- Brad Hoppman in Uncommon Wisdom Daily.
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What's bewildering is the federal government shutdown. It hasn't hurt the housing market yet, as mortgage lenders are still taking applications, locking rates, processing, and closing. But home sales could suffer if the shutdown drags on.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK..."Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice."--E.M. Forster, British writer  Bill Bazzel at BrandMortgage
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"We are certainly not in a housing bubble," said Laurie Goodman who heads up a housing thinktank at the Urban Institute. Both Goodman and Fleming said housing could absorb higher interest rates and remain attractive. Goodman posited that even with a 6% interest rate, affordability would remain at 2000-2003 levels, which were pretty stable compared to 2006-2007.
"I don't see interest rates going to 6% any time soon," she added. http://www.housingwire.com/articles/27270-abs-east-panel-says-shiller-wrong-on-housing-bubble-call
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Great news! Now we can fund a conventional loan for a primary residence up to 95% and the down payment can be a gift. In the past the MI companies wouldn’t allow without the borrower having some of his own money in the deal. -- Dave Cooper <davecooper@hamiltonstatebank.com
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The new $100 bills are out.  They are quite colorful.
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This is a rare meteorological phenomenon called a sky punch.  Shared by Metta Siam
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One of my favorite groups.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBW4bZTRE4M&feature=youtu.be -- shared by Virgil Cowen
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Jill Pierce is Team Leader for RealEstateAuctions.com


Monday, October 7, 2013

Gov't Shut Down? Life goes on.


Shared by Brigitte van Dongen
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Nat'l Real Estate Post:
Fannie and Freddie have overpaid mortgage processors $100,000,000, yet they are expecting the mortgage companies to produce absolutely perfect loans or the mortgage companies must buy back the loans.

Remember, FHA and VA loans are assumable.
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He (Trulia chief economist and vice president of analytics Jed Kolko) continued, "We are not at risk of a bubble today, but if prices rose 10% a year for the next three years, we’d all be calling bubble."  --  Christina Mlynski in HousingWire
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Among the 30 largest metropolitan areas analyzed by Zillow, 20 saw annual home price appreciation of at least 10%. Some of the most notable cities with annual increases in August were Sacramento (up 34.1%), Las Vegas (30.6%), San Francisco (28.1%), San Jose (24%), San Diego (23.7%), Phoenix (20.9%), Minneapolis (16.3%) and Seattle (16%).
Meanwhile, national rents also increased in August over the previous month, up 0.5%. The Zillow Rent Index now has a mark of $1,293. On a yearly basis, rents in August rose by 1.9%. -- Evan Nemerof in Origination News
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Quote of the week: "Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense" Ralph Waldo Emerson
Existing home sales in August at 5.8 million up 13.2% from a year ago.
Consumer price index up just 0.1% in August.
The median price of an existing home in August was $212,100 up 14.7% from a year ago.
Shared by Bill Bazzel in Inside Lending News
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However, the analyst added that first-time buyers comprised only 28% of August existing home sales versus 29% last month and versus the historical average of 40% to 45% — a sign entry-level buyer access to mortgage financing may not be improving.

But buyers aren’t the only ones facing tight lending standards. "Historically most builders are small businesses and they are still having difficulty getting construction loans," said Molony. -- Megan Hopkins in HousingWire
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Existing home prices were up just over 12 percent annually in July, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which is a three-month running average. The average price of a newly built Lennar home jumped 16 percent annually in the third quarter, while the average price of those built by KB Home surged 23 percent.

So far, even weak demand has pushed prices higher, again, due to historically low supply.

This means that home-price gains, as measured by the Case-Shiller indexes, are likely to remain strong for some time, even if they retreat some from the current pace." -- Dana Olick for CNBC
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Nat'l Real Estate Post:
HUD's new rule: If you list a HUD home, no one else in the company can bring the buyer.  (Now this is just plain dumb).
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According to HUD: 


Sales of new single-family houses in August 2013 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 421,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 7.9 percent (±14.6%)* above the revised July rate of 390,000 and is 12.6 percent (±15.3%)* above the August 2012 estimate of 374,000.
The median sales price of new houses sold in August 2013 was $254,600; the average sales price was $318,900. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new


The U.S. Federal Reserve’s central tendency projections for GDP growth in 2013 and 2014 (excluding the three highest and lowest numbers) were lowered. For 2013, the Fed now expects 2.0 percent to2.3 percent year-on-year GDP growth in the fourth quarter, compared to 2.3 percent to 2.6 percent in its June forecasts. -- From WT100
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The agency's quarterly mortgage metrics report showed that 90.6% of the 26.5 million loans reviewed were performing well in the second quarter, up from 90.2% in the previous quarter and 88.7% a year earlier. The number of foreclosures and "seriously delinquent" loans also dropped to their lowest levels since the crisis hit in 2008. The OCC attributed such improvements to a strengthening economy, servicing transfers, home retention efforts and home forfeiture actions.

However, the OCC also noted a slight increase in loans that were less than 60 days past due after two previous quarters of declines. The percentage of early past-due loans rose 11.6% from the first quarter and 1.8% from a year earlier, equally roughly 2.9% of the mortgage portfolio. Gouldie said this was partly seasonal but added that there are some outliers making early defaults appear larger than it seems. -- Rachel Witkowski in Origination News
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The foreclosure pipeline is finally starting to unclog, impacting smaller default teams at mega servicers and more default outsourcing to special servicers, explained Statebridge Company president and CEO Kevin Kanouff.
"As far as the industry as whole, I think the foreclosure numbers are going down because of three things: home price appreciation leading to lower strategic defaults, more loss mitigation deals getting done and servicers churning through the foreclosure backlog," he said.
Meanwhile, servicers initiated 150,592 new foreclosures, down 50.8% from a year ago.
Christina Mlynski in HousingWire
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Lisbon, Portugal, Elevador de Santa Justa
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Nat'l Real Estate Post:
 HUD backed off their dual agency rule that was about to go live tomorrow. Looks like there was enough stink raised about it to make someone over there with half a brain to figure out that it must not be such a good idea. At any rate – it’s gone, so the same office can list and sell an FHA short sale. This is good news and we’d like to think that our collective efforts helped in getting this changed.
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Fannie Mae's mortgage purchases fell 7% in August after a slight uptick in July, but commitments to purchase new mortgages from lenders fell to the lowest level in two years. -- Brian Collins in Origination News.
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Nat'l Real Estate Post:
FHA is shutting down, almost.  It is furloughing all but 4% of the staff.  Did you know that between the FHA, VA, and USDA, 45% of all mortgages are done.  FHA is still begging for a bailout.  But the GSE's are rolling in dough from the lawsuits they won.  Unfortunately, the money is going into the Treasury instead of where it would do some good.
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Shared by Dieter Birr
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Nat'l Real Estate Post:
Other federal institutions have been shut down, but not the CFPB. 
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http://www.livescience.com/40162-weirdest-effects-government-shutdown.html
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Jill Pierce is Team Leader with RealEstateAuctions.com

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Lovely architecture.

Vienna shared by Edith Kulka
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NAR said the median price of a home was $212,100 in August, up 14.7% from the year-earlier level, the largest growth since October 2005, as pricier homes saw large annual sales growth. Inventories rose 0.4% to 2.25 million homes available for sale, representing a 4.9-month supply at current sales rates.
Looking forward, rates that continue to rise will eventually pull back home purchases, NAR added.
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Koss noted that existing-home sales are unlikely to see an impact from the no-taper decision, with factors such as seasonality and a lack of first-time homebuyers playing into the upcoming numbers. “There’s not that great groundswell of first-time buyers coming in," said  Brian Koss, executive vice president at Mortgage Network.  -- Megan Hopkins in HousingWire
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According to the experts, interest rates will be at 5% next year adding that much more to a new home buyer's mortgage payment.
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Gertrude Muck-Erhardt shared Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas
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Shared by Kathy Morlock
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Auction.com is facilitating the closing of 20 commercial assets in 11 states for the week ending Sept. 6, the company said in a press release.
The sales had a combined total value of more than $65 million. Among the highlights was a 90,804-square-foot retail asset in Chino, Calif. Mountain Village Plaza, which was listed by Rockwood Real Estate Advisors. -- In HousingWire
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Too big to fail will end only when regulators properly implement the financial-reform measure. Title I of the law authorizes the Fed to force financial companies to change their activities — including their scale and scope — when it is determined that the institutions couldn't be resolved in an orderly fashion through the standard bankruptcy process.

The FDIC procedure is designed to impose losses on creditors of bank holding companies while protecting creditors to operating subsidiaries. As a consequence, private lending to a holding company should carry a premium interest rate relative to loans to an operating subsidiary, which involves less risk. This approach will work only if the Fed — and, again, the Board of Governors in particular — requires banks to have enough equity and long-term debt issued by the holding company to absorb potential losses. So far, the signs from the Fed about their thinking on this issue haven't been encouraging.  --  Simon Johnson in Money News
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Former Abbey in Eichstätt, Bavaria

Shared by Werner Polwein
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Personal income increased $57.2 billion, or 0.4 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI)

increased $56.2 billion, or 0.5 percent, in August, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $34.5 billion, or 0.3 percent. In July, personal

income increased $21.2 billion, or 0.2 percent, DPI increased $32.7 billion, or 0.3 percent, and

PCE increased $18.3 billion, or 0.2 percent, based on revised estimates.  -- From the Bureau of Economic Analysis
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Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property

located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the second quarter of 2013

(that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the "third" estimate released by the

Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 1.1 percent.
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Thursday, September 19, 2013

Who lives at the intersection of Charles and Manson?

 shared by George Takei
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American incomes down 8.3% since 2007.  In 2007 the median income was $56,080, in 2012 it was $51,017.  For the record, there is one demographic trend to note in these numbers. Even if the economy were going gangbusters, the aging of the baby boom generation would be a weight on US income levels. Generally speaking older people have lower income levels, which can drag down overall median income. The number of households in which the head of the household was 65 or older rose by roughly 1.1 million in 2012, a 4% increase over the prior year.  New numbers on American earnings add an important element to the current focus on how the country and the financial system are faring five years after the failure of Lehman Brothers sent the US financial system and the economy into a tailspin. (It also just happens to be the second anniversary of the start of the protests that became the Occupy Wall Street movement.) The data show many American families still haven’t pulled out of it. -- Shared by Ritchie King in Quartz and LinkedIn.
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You probably won’t be receiving a utility bill from Google anytime soon, but the search giant is slowly but surely morphing into a literal power broker. Yesterday (Sept. 17), for instance, Google announced that it would buy all the electricity generated by the 240-megawatt Happy Hereford wind farm to be built near Amarillo, Texas.  But the nation’s utility executives probably are not feeling lucky these days. They are already fretting about losing revenue as a growing number of homeowners install solar panels to power their abodes with free sunshine. With the Happy Hereford wind farm, which is expected to go online in late 2014, Google will have power-purchase agreements for more than 570 megawatts of wind energy. It has also invested directly in renewable energy projects, such as the $168 million it put into the 370-megawatt Ivanpah solar thermal power plant nearing completion in the southern California desert. These are still small amounts, but it may be only a matter of time before Google becomes a force in the power markets, whether it intends to or not.  (http://qz.com/125407)  Shared by Todd Woody in LinkedIn
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Now we know at least one official associated with the city of San Francisco would like the larger municipality to take on eminent domain as a solution to help underwater borrowers, in the same way that Richmond, Calif., has been pursuing that strategy.
"Until these lawsuits are resolved, homeowners may not know who to pay or the amount they need to pay off their mortgage. Additionally, any purported extinguishment of an original mortgage obtained through the eminent domain process may cause title insurance to be unavailable in subsequent transactions, or, at a minimum, result in exclusions from title insurance coverage. Title insurance protects real property owners and mortgage lenders against losses from possible defects in the title. In addition, rulings on eminent domain challenges in one jurisdiction will likely create a ripple effect impacting the legality of this type of eminent domain in all jurisdictions.”
So if it was a mystery Wednesday as to why title insurers took a tumble on the New York Stock Exchange, perhaps the above stated fears were the underlying cause.
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Foreclosure starts continue to yo-yo after falling from 72,700 in May to 57,300 in June, data from RealtyTrac revealed. From June to July, foreclosure starts have inched back up to 60,600.
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Remember Talk Like A Pirate Day is Sept 19
 Shared by George Takei
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A rapid decline in foreclosures sales and new foreclosure filings have helped to reduce the impact of distressed property sales on overall home prices, FNC said.
Foreclosure sales accounted for 12.2% of total home sales, down from 17.3% in July 2012. -- Brad Finkelstein in Origination News.
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Are the numbers of first-time buyers shrinking, victimized by cash-bearing investors, credit-tight lenders mounting mortgage interest rates and soaring home prices? Are they “increasingly getting left behind in the real-estate recovery” as the Journal reported n July?
Well, not exactly, argue two economists from the Atlanta Federal Reserve. Reports based on surveys of Realtors to the contrary, first timers are doing just well as ever, thank you very much. “We do not share the concern about weakness in housing demand going forward because we are not convinced that the data indicates a material decline in first-time buyer participation,” concluded researchers Jessica Dill and Ellyn Terry. -- Shared by Steve Cook in Real Estate Economy Watch.
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Check the most and least lucrative careers here http://n.pr/17ATa42. -- Shared by Guy Kawasaki
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This will be good news to the smaller mortgage lender, since it now has room to expand its share in the market. According to analyst Brian Klock at financial services firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lending trends now favor the small banks over the large. Lending overall is up more than 3% quarter-to-date (QTD). -- Shared by Jared Gaffney in REwired
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A federal district judge shut the door on Wells Fargo's (WFC) attempt to prevent the rollout of a controversial eminent domain rescue plan for underwater borrowers in Richmond, Calif.
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer dismissed the bank's push for an injunction without prejudice, claiming the case was not ripe, or legally ready for court, since it rested on future events that have yet to occur. -- Shared by Megan Hopkins in HousingWire
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Mortgage applications shifted gears, increasing 11.2% from a week earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said this week.
Meanwhile, the refinance index grew 18% from the prior week, while the purchase index rose 3%.
As a whole, the refinance share of mortgage activity inched back up to 61% of total applications, up from 57% a week earlier. -- Brena Swanson in HousingWire
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