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Feb Housing Starts Spiked 22 Percent
Investor's Business Daily (03/18/09) P. A1
Breaking away from prolonged downward trend, housing starts soared 22.2 percent to an annualized 583,000 units in February. Apartment and condo construction are driving the market, while new single-family home starts rose just 1.1 percent. Meanwhile, building permits--an indicator of future activity--were up 3 percent to 547,000 units.
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HUD Tightening FHA Cash-Out Limits
American Banker (03/18/09) P. 11
To compete with subprime lenders, HUD several years ago boosted the maximum loan-to-value ratio for FHA cash-out refinancings on one- to four-family properties to 95 percent. However, higher default rates and home-price declines have prompted the agency to lower the maximum LTV to 85 percent beginning on April 1. FHA Commissioner Brian Montgomery says permanent changes will not be made until the agency has reviewed its portfolio and the housing and mortgage markets.
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Fannie Tightens Its Conditions for Backing Condo Mortgages
Wall Street Journal (03/18/09) P. C8; Timiraos, Nick
Effective March 1, Fannie Mae no longer guarantees mortgages in condominium buildings where fewer than 70 percent of the units have sold--a change from the previous threshold of 51 percent. Also, the government-sponsored enterprise will no longer back loans for sales in buildings where more than 10 percent of units are owned by a single entity or where 15 percent of current owners are delinquent on association fees. Condo builders say the new rules will likely result in the failure of numerous buildings nationwide and come at a time when some cities are expecting a wave of new condos to be completed in the coming year or so.
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Fannie, Freddie REO Inventory Swells
Inman News (03/18/09)
Although Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac posted a 76-percent increase in loan modifications in 2008, the Federal Housing Finance Agency says the companies engaged in just 16,718 short sales and took ownership of 145,183 homes. Fannie Mae's real estate owned inventory surged 152 percent to 63,538 at the end of last year from the end of 2006, while Freddie Mac's REO inventory was up 334 percent to 29,346 over the same period. Sales of repossessed homes totaled 64,843 for Fannie Mae and 35,579 for Freddie Mac in 2008.
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Frank to Work on Bill to Revamp Fannie, Freddie
Wall Street Journal (03/18/09) P. A7; Hagerty, James R.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need to be overhauled because the current structure of the mortgage finance giants is "broken," according to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee plans to introduce legislation to restructure the government-backed companies later this year. In an interview, Frank said the firms could be separated into entities that would provide liquidity to the residential-finance market and provide government subsidies for low-income borrowers.
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Bank Opens 'Homeownership Centers' to Help
San Francisco Chronicle (03/18/09) Said, Carolyn
JPMorgan Chase has opened a homeownership center in Oakland, Calif., and expects to have two dozen more in place across the country by April. The homeownership centers give Chase, Washington Mutual and EMC borrowers who are at risk of foreclosure an opportunity to meet face to face with representatives of the bank and to learn within 30 days if they qualify for a modification that would make their loan more affordable. The homeownership centers will play a key role in Chase's effort to help 400,000 customers with $70 billion in loans over the next two years.
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S&P Cuts $16.16 Billion of Alt-A Securities
Wall Street Journal (03/18/09) P. C11; Shwiff, Kathy
Ratings on $16.16 billion worth of residential mortgage-backed securities issued in 2006 and 2007 and backed by Alt-A mortgages were downgraded by Standard & Poor's due to predictions that the mortgage pools would post average losses of 21.5 percent for 2007 loans. Additional RMBS securities were placed on watch for downgrades as the delinquency rate for Alt-A mortgages issued in recent years tops 20 percent.
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FDIC Extends Debt Guarantees
Washington Post (03/18/09) P. D2
The FDIC has lengthened a temporary program guaranteeing new senior unsecured debt issued from one bank to another. The initiative was launched on Oct. 14, 2008, to facilitate bank-to-bank lending and was scheduled to end on June 30; but the agency's board voted to extend the program to Oct. 31 this year.
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Commercial/Multifamily News |
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Complexities Contribute to CMBS Maturity Concerns
AIG, New York, and other institutions still need to clean toxic assets off their balance sheets to increase overall liquidity and provide new credit for maturities of highly-leveraged commercial mortgage-backed securities, commercial real estate collateralized debt obligations and other securitized vehicles collateralized by commercial real estate.
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DealMaker of the Day
NorthMarq Capital, Minneapolis, arranged more than $10 million in financing industrial, retail and office properties in California and New York.
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MBA News |
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CampusMBA Adds Two Certified Mortgage Technologists
Las Vegas?CampusMBA, the award-winning education division of the Mortgage Bankers Association, today announced that Michael Chan, CMT, vice president of ComplianceEase and Wayland B. Lennone, CMT, relationship executive of Fiserv, have earned the prestigious Certified Mortgage Technologist designation.
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Participate in MBA 2009 Servicing Operations Study/Forum
The Mortgage Bankers Association has begun open enrollment for its 2009 Servicing Operations Study and Forum (2008 data).
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MBA State Leg/Reg Committee Call Today
The Mortgage Bankers Association's next State Legislative and Regulatory Committee Exchange Call takes place today, Wednesday, March 18 at 3:00 ET.
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Call for Speakers for MBA Human Capital Management Symposium
The Mortgage Bankers Association is accepting speaker proposals for its second annual Human Capital Management Symposium, taking place Sept. 17-18 at MBA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
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QuoteLink
"Paper is still the lowest common denominator with the mortgage process. The challenge is to change the lender mindset."
--Greg Smith, vice president and general manager of Xerox Mortgage Services, Alpharetta, Ga.
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