As a Realtor I must tell you: don’t be seduced by those that would tell you that a short sale of your home will safeguard your credit score rating.
Credit scores, which are designed to assess how likely it is that a consumer will uphold their side of a bargain, look at severity, frequency and recency of items on your credit report. Continue Reading…
Ill-advised speculation on U.S. real estate helped set off the global financial crisis. But even after millions of foreclosures and their secondary effects rippled through economies around the world, U.S. homeowners might be making the same mistakes again.
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On Christmas Eve the Obama administration exercised its right to increase the amount of aid it could provide to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac without the permission of Congress by December 31, 2009. The administration vowed to back the mortgage giants for the next three years with tax payer money, no matter what the amount.
In March, the Department of Treasury announced the Making Homes Affordable initiative, made up of two components—the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) and the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP).
The program was created to offer assistance to as many as 7 to 9 million homeowners making a good-faith effort to make their mortgage payments, while attempting to prevent the destructive impact of the housing crisis on families and communities. It will not provide money to speculators, and it will target support to the working homeowners who have made every possible effort to stay current on their mortgage payments.
The Treasury Department recently announced updates to its Making Home Affordable program to include a second lien program and the use of short sales and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure.
The Federal Housing Authority reported yesterday that its capital reserve ratio has fallen to 0.53%. A far cry from the congressional mandate of a 2% reserve ratio. Are we headed “Back to the Future” with another bailout due to bad lending practices that were never turned away from by the US government, no less, after last year’s financial meltdown? Continue Reading…
The following story is an article posted on The Washington Times website, Oct. 19, 2009, entitled, Easy-Money Mortgages Still Provided, By the Feds, written by Patrice Hill.
So you thought easy-money mortgages with little or no down payment for people with bad credit was a thing of the past? Think again.
You can get just such a loan today – and it’s guaranteed by the federal government.
Texas-based venture capital funds did not raise any money in the third quarter.
“Everything is very slow going. We don’t expect to see dramatic increase for the rest of this year. In 2010, we expect to see gradual increases but we’re not gong to see a quick rebound.”
Emily Mendell
Spokeswoman for the National Venture Capital Association
Treasuries were hit hard on Friday after investors digested Fed Chief Bernanke’s comments of impending rate hikes and other positive global economic news.
Mortgage rates are roughly unchanged from Friday’s afternoon reprice. Continue Reading…
In case you haven’t seen the Bureau of Economic Analysis list of Personal Income for Metropolitan Areas, here’s how major cities compare. While Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas experienced personal income growth of 6.3 percent, 5.4 percent, 5.4 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively, in 2008, the average for U.S. metropolitan areas was 3.3 percent. (Figures are not inflation-adjusted.) Continue Reading…
Treasuries made respectable gains yesterday after a solid 10 year treasury auction. Today is the last auction of the week; the $12 billion auction of 30 year notes will have results announced at 1:00 pm EST. This morning the bond market has kept most of yesterday’s gains despite a jobless claims report coming in better than expected. Wholesale Inventories came in worse than expected (-1.3% versus the forecast -1%). Currently mortgage rates are roughly an 0.125 to 0.25 better in price from yesterday morning. Continue Reading…
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