All Posts Tagged With: "subprime"
Should Government Set Mortgage Rates?
With all the talk of getting a new mortgage there’s one question which no one seems ready to touch: Why doesn’t the government ought to set mortgage rates? At first this may seem like an audacious idea, a violation somehow of the free market absolutism preferred by so many businesses and industries — at least [...]
26Sep2011 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
FHA to lenders: Show us your license
HUD has come out with a new standard for lenders, the requirement to see the license number for each lender or loan officer who does an FHA loan. The numbers are recorded with the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry (NMLS). Okay, what does this mean and why should borrowers care? When you sell a [...]
10Jan2011 | Peter G. Miller | 1 comment | Continued
The mortgage foreclosure legislation Congress won’t touch
Stashed away in a drawer somewhere on Capitol Hill is a simple piece of legislation that would have done much to stop the mortgage mess, robo-signing, unfair foreclosures, and the growing claims against lenders. But Congress has not touched the Produce the Note Act since it was first introduced in February 2009 — nearly two [...]
29Nov2010 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
Morgan Stanley To Pay $102 Million For Mortgage Role In Massachusetts
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has announced that Wall Street titan Morgan Stanley will pay $102 million to settle for its role in creating a market for subprime mortgages in the state. The settlement includes $58 million to roughly 1,000 homeowners. “This has become an all-too-familiar pattern in which the deceptive practices of Wall Street [...]
25Jun2010 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
FHA To Borrowers: Gimme More!
The FHA has announced higher mortgage insurance premiums,stiffer downpayment standards for those with weak credit and more oversight for FHA-approved lenders. What’s going on here? A few things: First, FHA reserves are falling. The insurance program needs more money. What happens when insurance programs need cash? They raise premiums. In the case of the FHA [...]
20Jan2010 | Peter G. Miller | 1 comment | Continued
Mortgage Surprise? What Mortgage Surprise?
The most used word in the world of mortgage financing during the past few weeks has been “surprise,” as in, “oh my, cover your eyes and turn away from those poor wretched loans.” “The U.S. mortgage giant Freddie Mac said it would no longer buy those high-risk home mortgages that it deems to be the [...]
9Nov2009 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
Mortgages: Do Away With Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac?
The news is filled with stories regarding efforts to dump Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and replace them with, er, well, no one knows what. Good luck, folks. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now being blamed for following the instructions they received from the federal government. For example, in 2000 the minority loan purchase [...]
6Aug2009 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
Luxury Homes Wilt On The Market
Luxury homes — those mansions on the hill — are not selling like hotcakes. In fact, such homes are being re-priced with newer and lower values The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing says that of 40,252 luxury properties available during the past week, the typical price was $1,156,708 and the cost per square foot averaged [...]
24Jul2009 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac — How Are They Really Doing?
How well are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac doing? Better than most news reports might suggest. Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, the chief regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, James Lockhart, testified that the two companies own or guarantee 56% of the single family mortgages in this country or $5.4 trillion. Lockhart [...]
4Jun2009 | Peter G. Miller | 2 comments | Continued
Are Foreclosures Only A Subprime Problem?
Most of the recent foreclosure news has concerned subprime loans, but could the same problems impact other parts of the mortgage marketplace? “If late payments and foreclosures are rising for well-qualified borrowers, then you can expect interest rates to climb and mortgage standards to harden for everyone,” says Jim Saccacio, Chairman and CEO at RealtyTrac.com, [...]
23Sep2008 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
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