From December 2009 to February 2010 housing prices have dropped 0.6%, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. FHFA estimates the drop in housing prices is due to hesitation and a slowing in home sales brought on by a fear of a “double-dip” in housing prices. With mortgage originations an
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03/24/2010
In some cases, no news is good news. In this case, we still have some news, but it's quiet stuff-the ingredients that make for a gradually advancing stock market, and for interest rates that are merrily treading water as spring approaches. The DJIA began Monday, March 15, at 10624.69. It ended th
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03/22/2010
News from the National Association of Mortgage Processors: Responding to critics, officials of the Federal Housing Administration are set to warn in Congressional testimony Thursday that a double-dip decline in housing prices may result from even a slight increase in minimum down payments on FHA
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03/22/2010
This morning, in an interview with Diana Olick of CNBC, David Stevens (the FHA Commissioner) discussed changes coming to FHA this summer. Besides a slightly higher down payment and stricter underwriting criteria, FHA is increasing their upfront mortgage insurance premium from its current 1.75% to
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03/22/2010
Due to an increased trend towards fewer home sales since the new year, Fannie Mae has projected far fewer home sales for the 2010 year. According to Fannie Mae, they expect mortgage originations to dip by as much as $660 billion from 2009’s $1.97 trillion in mortgage originations. That’s a huge d
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03/18/2010
Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program Neil Barofsky is going to begin an audit of the Home Affordable Modification Program in order to insure regulations regarding the Net Present Value formula mandated by the HAMP program. The NPV of a home is the value of an investment
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03/18/2010
Economic Data:EUR / USD 1.3761 Down 0.0005USD / JPY 90.515 Up 0.2078GBP / USD 1.5340 Up 0.0098OIL 82.44 Up 0.74Gold 1,125.60 Up 3.10Key Economic News:Following the weekly mortgage applications report just released, we have PPI, testimony on bank regulation and mon
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03/17/2010
Efforts made by the federal programs Home Affordible Modification Program and Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives have lead to a ~12% drop in foreclosures in California for February 2010. However, the persistant problems of unemployment and underwater loans has lead to a large increase in No
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03/16/2010
In a statement issued by Wells Fargo, they have announced 24,975 approved permanent loan modifications as of February 2010. This number of permanent modifications leads all major loan services, with Bank of America coming in second at approximately 21,000 permanent modifications. Bank of America
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03/16/2010
Economic Data:EUR / USD 1.3722 Up 0.0046USD / JPY 90.520 Down 0.0050GBP / USD 1.5130 Up 0.0073OIL 80.74 Up 0.94Gold 1,120.00 Up 16.60Key Economic News:The FOMC statement will obviously be the focus today, teed up by housing starts, import prices, and budget testim
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03/16/2010
