- The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has reported an uptick in mortgage rates from June to July 2015. This is according to the Monthly Interest Rate Survey (MIRS), which measures several indices of new mortgage contracts to arrive at a national average. July’s average was 4.02% up 17 basis points from June’s 3.8%.
- The FHFA has also released its second quarter Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) refinance results. According to the report refinances remained unchanged between the first and second quarters of 2015, 31,561 borrowers refinanced with HARP funds, which represented 5% of all U.S. refinances. HARP was established in 2009 in order to assist homeowners unable to refinance because of a decline in their home value. As of March the FHFA estimated that there were over 500,000 borrowers eligible for the HARP program.
- Also according to the FHFA house prices rose 1.2% from the first to the second quarter (Q2) of 2015 and are up more that 5% over Q2 201. This is according FHFA’s House Price Index (HPI) which has been up for the last 16 consecutive quarters.
Tag Archives: real estate finance
Tuesday’s Regulatory & Legislative Round-Up
- Fannie Mae announced HomeReady – a new affordable lending product which will be rolled out later in the year. The program includes features designed to make it more flexible for lenders and buyers alike. For lenders Desktop Underwriter (DU) allows lenders to make credit risk, eligibility and loan availability assessment in one tool. HomeReady loans also promise simplified execution due to the ability to commingle them with standard loans into Mortgaged Backed Security polls. Purchasers are able to put as little as 3% down, and are able to use rental income from the property and non-borrower household income to meet the requirements.
Thursday’s Advocacy & Think Tank Round-Up
- Community Builders, an initiative of the Sonoran Institute has released Place Value: How Communities Attract, Grow and Keep Jobs and Talent in the Rocky Mountain West recommends walkability and quality of life conscious development of communities .
- According to the National Association of Realtor’s analysis of the New Housing Starts data homebuilders are increasingly developing high density housing with “walkability” suburban and single family housing has been deemphasized.
- The Urban Institute released its Housing Finance at a Glance monthly chartbook, which Prof. Reiss finds to be a very helpful holistic view of the mortgage industry.
- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Office of Policy Development and Research has developed the Creating Connected Communities: A Guidebook for Improving Transportation Connections for Low and Moderate Income Households in Small and Midsize Cities – the guidebook contains recommendations geared toward cities with 250,000 or fewer residents which among other things suggest a refocus of financial resources on critical needs and improvement of the alignment between housing and transportation investments.
- Zillow has announced that home prices are rising faster than incomes for most Millenials (no surprise there). This report also finds that first time home buyers rent for longer before buying typically more expensive homes which are paid for with a larger share of income.
Thursday’s Advocacy & Think Tank Round-Up
- MakeRoom’s campaign to bring awareness to the housing affordability concert by arranging concerts on the first (when rent is due) in the homes of families struggling to pay the rent. On August 1st Nashville an single mom, Marlene and her family were serenaded by the country music rock band John and Jacob. Marlene is an adjunct professor who spends 75% of her income on rent.
- The Urban Institute’s Housing Finance at a Glance Monthly Chartbook, contains a wealth of information on today’s real estate market including size and financing trends.
Bank Break-ins
Chris Odinet has posted Banks, Break-Ins, and Bad Actors in Mortgage Foreclosure to SSRN. The abstract reads,
During the housing crisis banks were confronted with a previously unknown number mortgage foreclosures, and even as the height of the crisis has passed lenders are still dealing with a tremendous backlog. Overtime lenders have increasingly engaged third party contractors to assist them in managing these assets. These property management companies — with supposed expertise in the management and preservation of real estate — have taken charge of a large swathe of distressed properties in order to ensure that, during the post-default and pre-foreclosure phases, the property is being adequately preserved and maintained. But in mid-2013 a flurry of articles began cropping up in newspapers and media outlets across the country recounting stories of people who had fallen behind on their mortgage payments returning home one day to find that all of their belongings had been taken and their homes heavily damaged. These homeowners soon discovered that it was not a random thief that was the culprit, but rather property management contractors hired by the homeowners’ mortgage servicer.
The issues arising from these practices have become so pervasive that lawsuits have been filed in over 30 states, and legal aid organizations in California, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, and New York report that complaints against lender-engaged property managements firms number among their top grievances. This Article analyzes lender-engaged property management firms and these break-in foreclosure activities. In doing so, the paper makes a three-part call to action, which includes the implementation of bank contractor oversight regulations, the creation of a private cause of action for aggrieved homeowners, and the curtailment of property preservation clauses in mortgage contracts.
This is a timely article about a cutting edge issue. All too often I have heard pro-bank lawyers claim that banks almost never foreclose improperly. The news reports and lawsuits discussed in this article counter that claim. And yet, I hope that some empirically-minded person could quantify the frequency of such misbehavior to better inform policymakers going forward.
Friday’s Government Reports Round-up
- Budgetary Impact of Major Federal Programs that Guarantee Mortgages—Congressional Budget Office’s January 2015 Baseline
- California Assembly Democrat’s Proposal to Create More Affordable Housing in California
- Dr. Michael Stegman, Counselor to the Treasury Secretary for Housing Finance Policy, Remarks before the Third Annual Goldman Sachs’s Housing Finance Conference
- Fannie Mae: Housing Forecast February 2015
Thursday’s Advocacy & Think Tank Round-up
- ACLU: “Here We Go Again: Communities of Color, The Foreclosure Crisis, and Loan Servicing Failures”
- Federal Housing Finance Agency – HPI Calculator – projects what a given house purchased at a point in time would be worth today if it appreciated at the average appreciation rate of all homes in the area.
- Federal Reserve Bank of New York Interactive Home Price Index – Maps changes in home prices each month compared with prices one year earlier, by county, based on CoreLogic overall house price indexes.
- Joint Center for Housing Studies Harvard University: “Racialized Recovery: Post-Forclosure Pathways in Distressed Neighborhoods in Boston”
- National Association of Realtors – Realtors Confidence Index Reflects on Positive Trends in Home Sales for January
- Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Brief “The U.S. Treasury’s Credit Rating Agency Exercise: First Steps Out of the Private Label Securities Desert”
