Free Republic

A friend of mine is trying to sell a 5 acre lot in Las Vegas and has been trying since 2009. But recently, he has received 3 offers at above the asking price; he has turned all offers down. Why? He thinks The Fed will continue rolling the dice on easy money policies. Reuters had an interesting piece on the Las Vegas “rebound” entitled “Special Report: Cheap money bankrolls Wall Street’s bet on housing.” According to the Reuters article, The Vegas market has unsteady legs. Statistics compiled by the University of Nevada at Las Vegas show some 40,000 homes are...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced today that it is directing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to limit their future mortgage acquisitions to loans that meet the requirements for a qualified mortgage, including those that meet the special or temporary qualified mortgage definition, and loans that are exempt from the “ability to repay” requirements under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank). In January, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a final rule implementing the “ability to repay” provisions of Dodd-Frank, including certain protections from liability for loans that meet the criteria of a qualified...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today released its January 2013 Refinance Report, which shows that refinance volume remained high through the first month of this year. There were nearly 470,000 refinances in January, with roughly 97,600 completed through the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). This brings total HARP refinances to more than 2.2 million since the program’s inception in April 2009. • Borrowers in January with loan-to-value ratios greater than 105 percent accounted for 47 percent of the HARP refinance volume. • The number of completed HARP refinances for deeply underwater borrowers continued to represent a significant portion of...

There’s something macabre about an imminent train wreck, you know exactly what is coming but you can’t help but watching. Now imagine that instead of watching that train wreck from atop a building a safe distance away, you’re standing right between the train and the tanker truck that has stalled on the tracks. That’s a different story all together. At that point, rather than being a mere fascination it’s a matter of life or death. You’ve seen the damage a train wreck can do. That’s why it was fascinating in the first place. The difference now of courses is that...

While flying back to Washington DC from Dallas (mercifully American Airlines has Wifi!), I saw this article in the Financial Times: “Fed warned to rein in QE.” Essentially, Blackrock’s Rick Rieder warns that The Fed’s unorthodox approach to stimulating the economy (or at least the stock market). “Fed policy has had a distorting effect on capital allocation decisions of all kinds at virtually every level of the economy,” he told the Financial Times. “It is a very large and dull hammer for markets.” I wonder if Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke sings “If I had a (dull) hammer,” Thanks to Bernanke’s...

<p>The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place.</p>

Yes, we have yet another government mortgage modification program. This makes the 15th government mortgage modification program to go along with HAMP, HARP, the Attorneys General Settlement and their various contortions. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will offer a new, simplified loan modification initiative to minimize losses and to help troubled borrowers avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes. Beginning July 1, servicers will be required to offer eligible borrowers who are at least 90 days delinquent on their mortgage an easy way to lower their monthly payments and modify their...

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, mortgage applications fell -7.11% from the preceding week. Mortgage purchases applications fell -3.87%. They remain in a rut since the April 30, 2010 spike. Sustainable? Yes. Does it help the housing rally? Of course not. Mortgage refinancing applications fell -8.01% from the previous week. This is not surprising since mortgage rates have remained low for so long that the pool of borrowers wanting to refinance their mortgages is thinning out. Unless, of course, the Federal government (or FHFA) changes the requirements for negative equity refis. Yield Curves Of course, one of the most important...

Radio Talk Show Host Charged with Mortgage Fraud Warren Ballentine, 41, Durham, North Carolina, and formerly of Country Club Hills, Illinois, a lawyer who hosts a national radio talk show, was indicted on federal charges for allegedly engaging in two mortgage fraud schemes that defrauded lenders of a total of approximately $9.7 million. The defendant allegedly schemed with others to obtain more than two dozen fraudulent mortgage loans and represented buyers at multiple closings, knowing that they were fraudulently qualified for loans to purchase homes in Chicago, Illinois, and various southern suburbs. Ballentine owns the Law Office of Warren Ballentine,...

I wrote Tuesday about the hypocrisy and perhaps vindictiveness of the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against ratings agency Standard & Poor’s for rating toxic mortgage-backed securities and their derivatives highly before the housing bubble popped. Apparently I wasn’t tough enough on … the DoJ. Bloomberg’s Jonathan Weil explains why the lawsuit isn’t just ill-considered, but downright silly: Oh, the poor suckers at Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp., fooled about the stench of their own garbage by those sneaky credit raters at Standard & Poor’s.The U.S. Justice Department made some peculiar allegations in its lawsuit this week against S&P...

It’s 100% financing—the same strategy that pushed many homeowners into foreclosure during the housing bust. Banks say these loans are safer: They’re almost exclusively being offered to clients with sizable assets, and they often require two forms of collateral—the house and a portion of the client’s investment portfolio in lieu of a traditional cash down payment. In most cases, borrowers end up with one loan and one monthly payment. Depending on the lender and the borrower, roughly 60% to 80% of the loan can be pegged to the home’s value while the remaining 20% to 40% can be secured by...

What is your prediction on mortgage spreads after the private sector almost vanished by 2008? The red line denotes non-GSE market share and the green line denotes GSE market share (e.g., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc.). The government essentially became a monopolist (although the government entities including the FHA compete with each other for market share). There are barriers to entry that would promote competition with Uncle Sam – it is called Dodd-Frank and the Consumer Financial Bureau. The vast majority of residential mortgages will continue to be purchase and/or insured by the Federal government. But after the effective nationalization...

The second person, a former housing industry executive intimately familiar with of Fannie Mae's operations, agreed that Donilon was at the head of an unceasing anti-regulatory campaign that the company waged throughout his tenure. The former housing executive said that on political issues, especially regulatory oversight, Donilon was the right-hand man to Fannie Mae chairman and CEO Franklin Raines.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will name close aide Tom Donilon as his new national security adviser on Friday in a move that could have implications for the struggli

Policy-wise, this is an oldie but a goodie, I guess, even though we’re still spending tons of money on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae more than four years after the crash. Wells Fargo CEO Robert Kovacevich can't believe that we haven't learned the lesson from 2008 and gotten the government out of the home mortgage industry, and tells CNBC's Squawk Box that the two organizations made that crash exponentially worse than it needed to be: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exacerbated the 2008 mortgage crisis, and that’s why the U.S. government should get out...

The radio show “Marketplace” wanted to chat this morning about the news that the Obama administration might extend its mortgage-refinancing programs to include borrowers whose mortgages aren’t backed by the government. It’s one thing for the Administration to pressure loan modifications (with Congress’ blessing) for the FHA insured mortgages. It is even a bigger stretch for the Administration to pressure Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHFA to perform loan modifications (specifically principal writedowns since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are private corporations … in conservatorship. But it quite another thing for the Administration to pressure non-government entities to make principal...

A new and extensive analysis of 2.4 million loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration in recent years shows a pattern of risky lending that could generate $20 billion in losses and harm thousands of the nation’s most vulnerable borrowers. By ignoring risks in loans it insured in 2009 and 2010, the study concludes, the F.H.A. is imperiling both borrowers and taxpayers who stand behind the agency. The analysis emerged less than a month after the F.H.A.’s auditor submitted a troubling report on the financial soundness of its insurance fund. In mid-November, the auditor estimated that the fund, which backs...

Since 2007, distressed homeowners have dodged massive bills due to a tax-time saving grace: The debts they were "forgiven" in foreclosures, short sales or principal reductions were also scrubbed from their dues to Uncle Sam. But that tax break is set to expire Dec. 31, and with it more than $1 billion in tax savings to homeowners in trouble. Foreclosed? You'll pay taxes on the money you owed the bank. Close on a "short sale" for less than you owed on your mortgage? You'll still owe part of it to the IRS. Even homeowners whose loan principals are trimmed would...

Former ACORN employee and whistleblower Anita Moncrief said ACORN is far from dead and is still “colluding” and “working with” the President Barack Obama's Department of Justice. Moncrief appeared with Conservative commentator David Webb in a one-hour special about the “District of Corruption” movie on FOX News’ “Hannity.” She specifically discussed how community organizing groups on the left put pressure on institutions like banks to get them to relent to their “equal outcomes” agenda. Moncrief said ACORN would help people report food stamps and other “under-the-table” incomes as income to get subprime mortgages that eventually caused the housing market to...

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), mortgage applications dropped 2.2% from the previous week. Mortgage purchases applications rose 2.66% while refinancing applications fell by 3.24%. Purchase applications remain in “the red zone” since 2010 and far below the heady days of 2007. Those are the seasonally adjusted numbers. On a non seasonally adjusted basis, purchase applications actually fell 11.27% and refinancing applications fells 12.91%. Low mortgage rates enable by Fed easing are of little help if credit standards remain elevated. And a stumbling employment market doesn’t help. Initial jobless claims remain above 400k. While there is a temptation to...

The nation’s biggest bank and its largest mortgage lender, was charged by federal prosecutors with running a decade-long mortgage fraud involving recklessly underwritten US-insured home loans to fatten its bottom line.

Mortgage rates continue to hit new lows, but the ultra-low rates are out of reach for many would-be borrowers who can’t meet strict underwriting standards. And new national data suggests that underwriting standards for getting a loan are getting even stricter, too. FICO credit scores on all new loans closed in August averaged 750. That is nine points higher than one year ago, according to a survey of about 2 million mortgages by Ellie Mae Inc., a mortgage technology firm used by many lenders. For home owners who refinanced in August, the average FICO score was 769—even higher—at Fannie Mae...

Misuse of the FHA Preforeclosure Sale Program may have cost the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) over a billion dollars for claims that did not meet program according to an audit released this week by the HUD's Region 7 Office of Inspector General (OIG). OIG initiated the audit after noticing significant deficiencies in borrower qualifications during an audit of program claims at one large lender. The Preforeclosure Sale Program allows borrowers in default due to an adverse an unavoidable financial situation to sell their home at fair market value and use the proceeds to pay off an FHA-guaranteed...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — To hear the National Association of Realtors tell it, if only banks had looser mortgage standards, another 700,000 homes would be sold and 350,000 jobs would be created. That’s according to a release Monday from the trade association. NAR says between 500,000 to 700,000 more homes and between 250,000 to 350,000 new jobs would be created if standards weren’t too tight. There probably will be about 4.6 million homes sold this year, whereas the NAR says in “normal” circumstances some 5 million to 5.5 million would be sold. The NAR points out that in the good ole...

Strategic defaulters, beware. The feds are coming for you. And they are not happy. Not the FBI. The Office of the Inspector General at the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The OIG may not have the same fearsome "G-man" reputation as its better-known counterparts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but it is every bit as much a law enforcement agency, with the same powers to search, seize and arrest. Special OIG agents are even authorized to carry firearms. The OIG's mission is to seek administrative sanctions, civil recoveries and criminal prosecutions against anyone who abuses the FHFA's programs. And it...

The Federal Reserve fulfilled expectations of more stimulus for the faltering economy, taking aim now at driving down mortgage rates. The Fed said it will buy $40 billion of mortgages per month in an attempt to foster a nascent recovery in the real estate market. The purchases will be open-ended, meaning that they will continue until the Fed is satisfied that economic conditions, primarily in unemployment, improve. There's strong hints that they'll do Treasurys next," Joe LaVorgna, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Advisors, said in a phone interview from London."They're pulling out all the stops to try to get this...

Wall Street warns against using eminent domain to seize underwater mortgagesBy Peter Schroeder - 08/19/12 05:00 PM ET Heavy hitters in the financial industry are lining up against a new idea brewing among local government officials to help struggling homeowners by seizing control of their mortgages through eminent domain. With many areas of the country still digging out from the housing crisis, some local governments are considering taking on the underwater mortgages at a substantially lower price, thus making them more affordable for the borrower. With policymakers at the federal, state and local level struggling to find a way to...

A Democratic committee chairman overrode his own subpoena three years ago in an investigation of former subprime mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp. to exclude records showing that he, other House members and congressional aides got VIP discounted loans from the company, documents show. The procedure to keep the names secret was devised by Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y. In 2003, the 15-term congressman had two loans processed by Countrywide’s VIP section, which was established to give discounts to favored borrowers. Issa exposed Towns’ coverup by issuing a second subpoena, which disgorged all of the records: The effort at secrecy was reversed...

A top housing regulator on Tuesday spurned a proposal from President Obama and Democrats to let homeowners write down the principal on their mortgages. Edward DeMarco, the acting director of the federal agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said the risk to taxpayers from the mortgage aid would far outweigh the benefits. “We concluded the potential benefit was too small and uncertain relative to unknown costs and risks,” DeMarco, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), said in a letter to Congress. DeMarco's move drew a swift rebuke from the Treasury Department, which had pushed FHFA...

Do you remember that thing about how the banks wouldn't lend to blacks and Hispanics because they were racists? And do you remember how they passed the Community Reinvestment Act so that banks were forced to reduce down payments practically to zero and lend to a lot of people they knew were bad credit risks? And do you remember how Wall Street bundled all these risky subprime mortgage and sold them to investors around the world so that when it became clear that those people weren't going to be able to pay their mortgages banks everywhere were left holding the...

No 1. home lender Wells Fargo & Co. has agreed to pay at least $175 million to settle federal allegations that it systematically overcharged minorities during the frenzied housing boom, including steering African Americans and Latinos into more expensive subprime mortgages. The agreement was announced Thursday by the Justice Department, which described it as the second-largest fair-lending settlement in the department’s history. (In the largest, reached last December, Bank of America Corp. agreed to pay $335 million to settle claims against Countrywide Financial Corp., the aggressive Calabasas lender it acquired in 2008.) Asst. Atty. Gen. Thomas E. Perez said “a...

A handful of local officials in California who say the housing bust is a public blight on their cities may invoke their eminent-domain powers to restructure mortgages as a way to help some borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth. Investors holding the current mortgages predict the move will backfire by driving up borrowing costs and further depress property values. "I don't see how you could find it anything other than appalling," said Scott Simon, a managing director at Pacific Investment Management Co., or Pimco, a unit of Allianz SE. Eminent domain allows a government to forcibly acquire...

Politicians seem to have a special fondness for words that have two very different meanings, so we are likely to hear a lot of these kinds of words this election year. "Access" is one of those words. Politicians seem to be forever coming to the rescue of people who have been denied "access" to credit, college or whatever. But what does that mean, concretely? It could mean that some external force is blocking you from whatever your goal might be. Or it could mean that you just don't have whatever it takes to reach that goal. To take a...

Amid all the rhetoric and posturing that have accompanied every twist and turn of the great housing bust and the ensuing slow, stuttering recovery of the United States economy, a comment made last week by new Fannie Mae CEO Tim Mayopoulos to the Wall Street Journal might have seemed consequential only to the most wired-in housing wonk. ”From my perspective, I don’t believe we need principal reduction to modify loans and make [modifications] work for homeowners,” Mr. Mayopoulos said.

A group of businessmen with ties to Warren Buffett, George Soros, President Obama, and socialist senator Bernie Sanders are pushing a plan to use the government's power of eminent domain to seize billions of dollars worth of underwater mortgages from banks and bondholders. Word of the plan surfaced earlier this month in a Reuters dispatch that reported the eminent domain strategy but not the political ties of the businessmen involved in the plan nor their links to two of America's most prominent and outspoken billionaires. The Reuters article said a firm called Mortgage Resolution Partners, chaired by Steven Gluckstern, a...

President Obama’s Senior Advisor, David Plouffe, sent out an email today explaining why loan modifications are “good” and not modifying loans is “bad.” I felt like Denzel Washington from “Philadelphia” saying “All right, Mr. Laird Plouffe, explain this to me like I’m a four-year-old, okay?” Well, here is Plouffe’s “Philadelphia” explanation to Americans. Prepare to be insulted. That presentation by President Obama’s housing adviser was … “Here you go, dimwits, let poppa tell you what to do.” And grossly misleading. How about talking to us like we are adults? Their motto should be “Cry Havoc! And let slip the dogs...

President Barack Obama visited Val and Paul Keller on Friday. They owe $168,000 on their mortgage. Their home is currently valued at $100,000. Obama forgot to mention something. At the peak of the market in 2007, the Keller's did a $250,000 cash-out refinance! Now they want Obama's help.

The U.S. Federal Reserve estimates that of the 12 million American homeowners who have negative equity, 3 million--or 1 out of every 4--are borrowers with FHA-insured loans.

EVERY few years, the conflicts of interest so deeply embedded in the Wall Street business model emerge from the shadows for all to see. Coming to light last week, courtesy of Massachusetts regulators, was UBS’s dual roles in the auction-rate securities market, which have had devastating effects on the people and institutions that invested in them. Because every big brokerage firm that participated in this market faced the same conflicts as both underwriters of the securities and managers of the auctions that set their prices, similar ugliness will likely turn up elsewhere as regulators continue their digging..... The problem UBS...

After edging out Rockefeller 51% to 49% in the winner-take-all race in California, Goldwater had a huge majority of delegates, enough to easily win the nomination at the Republican convention. George Romney set about denouncing Goldwater, and even raised a stink at the convention to have Goldwater′s delegates disqualified. Romney was accusing many of Goldwater′s delegates as being everything from racists, members of the Ku-Klux-Klan, the John Birch Society and even accused some of being Communists! Imagine that! Once Goldwater was named the presidential nominee, George Romney still worked to undermine his campaign, refusing to endorse or support him. So...

Today, FHFA updated their study of principal reductions and Director Ed DeMarco presented the new results. He did NOT announce any trial program or agreement with the Obama Administration about using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to salvage the housing market. But he did say that an announcement will be out in a few weeks. As I said at Brookings, we have very little empirical evidence (other than anecdotal stories) that principal reductions work. We have not been through 3-4 years of mortgage modifications with principal reductions to see if they are as effective as forbearance in preventing defaults. FHFA...

While most Americans agree now is not the best time to sell a home, they feel stronger than ever that those struggling to pay their mortgage should sell their home and buy a cheaper one rather than receive help from the government. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American Adults shows that just 19% believe the government should assist those struggling homeowners in making their mortgage payments. Sixty-nine percent (69%) think someone who can’t afford to make increased mortgage payments should sell their home and find a less expensive one. That’s up three points from January and the...

Wonder how Americans can afford to buy millions of iGadgets, a second LCD TV for the shoe closet, and eat at restaurants more than almost any time in the past despite sliding personal income? Simple - increasingly fewer pay the biggest staple bill in a US household: their mortgage. The following story of Keith And Janet Ritter, who have lived in their Fort Washington, MD $1.29MM, 4,900 square foot McMansion for 5 years (which they purchase with no money down) without ever making a single mortgage payment, and who are not even close to being evicted, may explain much...

Why has it taken the Obama Administration over three years to address the foreclosure scandal and have they actually addressed it? The scandal, which has been referred to in some quarters as “Foreclosure-gate” involves mortgage companies using a phony practice called “robo-signing” in order to fraudulently foreclose on homeowners. The company behind most of these robo-signings is Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, known as MERS. This national company has served as a clearinghouse and as a rapid computer generated paperwork processor for the big banks and secondary mortgage investors seeking to process and re-process mortgages. MERS tracks an average of 65...

The latest quarterly report out of CoreLogic is as usual full of curious insights about the state of US housing. Key among them is the finding that "negative equity and near-negative equity mortgages accounted for 27.8 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide in the fourth quarter, up from 27.1 in the previous quarter. Nationally, the total mortgage debt outstanding on properties in negative equity increased from $2.7 trillion in the third quarter to $2.8 trillion in the fourth quarter." In other words, courtesy of no Mark To Market, there is at least $2.8 trillion in debt held...

President Barack Obama, whose economic acumen was shaped by left-wing, Big Government ideologues, wants to fix the housing market mess that government, in large part, is responsible for creating. His plan to tax big banks to raise money to guarantee refinanced loans for existing homeowners to lower their monthly payments is fundamentally flawed, almost certainly won't pass Congress, but it is political pandering of the first order. In an election year, is anyone surprised he would push something he knows won't happen while positioning himself as Rescuer-in-Chief? He can always blame Congress when it doesn't come to pass. The rest...

(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve announced on Thursday it has reached an agreement with five U.S. banks on penalties totaling $766.5 million over problems in their mortgage servicing businesses as part of a larger $25 billion foreclosure deal struck between the banks and state and federal agencies. Under the agreement the banks would not pay their fines to the Fed and would instead make them as part of the programs that comprise the broader state-federal deal. Under the Fed agreement the breakdown of what each bank has agreed to pay is $175.5 million for Bank of America, $22 million for...

In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama outlined "a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates." Despite stern opposition from Congressional Republicans, the President is still pushing for the plan, which calls for the Federal Housing Administration to take on the risks of the new mortgages created by the mass refinancing. The President says the plan will be paid for by "a small fee on the largest financial institutions [and] give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance...

Refinancing mortgages... a plan pushed by Glenn Hubbard, Dean of Columbia business school, also a top economic advisor to GOP hopeful Mitt Romney.

President Obama is in Fairfax Virginia today at 11am announcing his new mortgage refinancing program. The program is meant to compliment his already existing HARP 2.0 program for borrowers whose loans are not held or insured by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Rather, it is meant to allow mortgage refinancing to 1 out of 3 borrowers who are not eligible for HARP 2.0 which would be an estimated 3.5 million homeowners. That is on top of the anticipated 11 million borrowers who could refinance their loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The estimate price tag is $5-10 billion. Here...