The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) announced Wednesday that it would be lifting the caps it had imposed several years ago to limit growth of Freddie Mac's and Fannie Mae's owned portfolios.The caps had been instituted after both of the huge government sponsored enterprises
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02/29/2008
You can tap your home's equity to pay the bills if you are laid off. But you have to take action while you still have a job.There are two ways to extract equity from your home without selling it or refinancing the mortgage. One way is to get a home-equity loan -- a lump sum that you repay over a
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02/29/2008
Despite the many programs gearing up or in place to help homeowners resolve problems with their mortgages, foreclosure related activities continued to increase in January. But, perhaps partially because of these programs, the rate of increase appears to be slowing from the pace of previous months
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02/28/2008
When preparing to sell a home, it is necessary to assess the house's main selling points. A house's best features don't always speak for themselves to buyers and they might require some highlighting on the part of the sellers. This article discusses ways to make the most of your homes best featur
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02/28/2008
Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday that Fannie Mae is proposing to ban the use of appraisals by a lender's employees or those arranged by mortgage brokers.The proposal was contained in what Bloomberg referred to as a "talking points" memo distributed to lenders this week and was in response to
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02/28/2008
The credit scoring system is being tweaked again as Fair Isaac Corporation, developer of the FICO credit score rolls out a new model dubbed FICO 08.The new product was originally announced back in June but was not due to be finalized for a while. A demand by users in the wake of both rising mortg
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01/09/2008
Heres a story that I found on inmannews.com A coalition of lenders, loan servicers and investors have reportedly agreed to a plan that would freeze interest rates on some subprime mortgage loans for five years.Borrowers with loans made between Jan. 1, 2005, through July 30 of this year who face
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12/05/2007
Here is the partial article:The U.S. Council of Mayors released a devastating report on the impact on member communities of the ongoing housing market problems. The report, prepared by Global Insight, an economic forecasting firm, was presenting at a meeting of the Conference attended by mortga
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11/27/2007
Long-term mortgage interest rates were down Monday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield dropped to 3.83 percent. The 30-year fixed-rate average sank to 5.82 percent, and the 15-year fixed rate fell to 5.4 percent. The 1-year adjustable held at 5.53 percent.The 30-year Treasury bond yiel
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11/27/2007
A massive national property information database envisioned by a National Association of Realtors advisory group would be governed by brokers, owned by the Realtor trade group, and accessible to varying degrees by consumers, agents, brokers, appraisers and government agencies.This so-called Gatew
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11/26/2007
