Clever Chase Business Loan Promo There are some pretty creative folks out there, even in banking. Every once in a while someone will suggest a reward to residential borrowers for making their payment, instead of (what some would say) a reward for not making their payments. In some news out yesterday, Chase announced an incentive
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Man Using Child’s Social Security Number Hit For Fraud A man in Houston, TX just pled guilty in a mortgage fraud scheme. So these days, just what does using a child’s Social Security number to secure funds for mortgages and committing wire fraud get you? The sentencing of 39-year-old Adrian Levale Cole isn’t until September,
Mortgage Bond Market Update Yesterday we saw yet another improvement, with lower coupon (current production) prices doing the best. At the close of business yesterday, the spread between a Fannie 4.5% security and a Fannie 5.0% security was 2.5 points. (So .5 in rate equates to 2.5 points, or about .625 points for every .125%
Dear Chad: I wanted to say thanks for the follow on Twitter last week. I fully appreciate all of my early @TheBasisPoint followers, but your follow hit me right in the feelings. I think it’s because of your phrases like “it hurt me too, right in the feelings,” and because of the epic pinky ring
This post is a few days late because I don’t watch FoxBusiness, but Cody Willard who co-anchored their recently cancelled market wrap show Happy Hour has left the network. In what many would call true-to-Fox form, they blocked Willard’s farewell blog post even though he called his experience with Fox a “dream job.” Click link
Another massive $100m+ art heist was just pulled off clean in Paris. The prize: a Picasso, a Matisse and three other masterpieces. Can people who do this move art in the circles they run in? Probably. Or maybe they just do it for the thrill. Either way, everyone loves a good caper, so we’re just
Are You On Global Rich List? You’re richer than you think, I hope. The Global Rich List website generates a wealth ranking for its users based on their annual income. The median income in the United States in 2009 (half above, half below) was $52,000 and if that was your income you are the 58,252,719th
Rate Lows For 2010 Mortgage rates are the lowest they’ve been all year – is your production heading higher? Probably not, so why isn’t mortgage production per agent picking up? Analysts point out that mortgage spreads have not done much, and even if Treasury rates drop, mortgage rates may not follow. On the other hand,
Reporter Passes Out It is not often that one is able to watch a financial newscaster pass out while on the job. And don’t ask me what relevancy a keyboard-playing cat has with any of it. Fed Continues Reign Over Small Banks Well, let’s not beat around the bush. According to the popular press, the
How To Get A Quick 5-Point Credit Score Gain Here’s a tip of the day: if a borrower needs an additional 1-5 pts on a FICO score to qualify for a particular home loan program, with the borrower’s permission use the painless 5 year electronic opt-out on www.OptOutPrescreen.com. Apparently it has a positive impact on
Underwater Homes Drops In Q1 CoreLogic reflected some good news about the housing market. The number of homes where borrowers owe more on the mortgage than the house is worth has dropped to about 11.2 million in the first quarter, down from 11.3 million last year. But we still have about 24% of all residences
Wild Market Tuesday Recap, Consumer Confidence Up, Author Tattoos ‘NYT Bestseller’ On Chest (Part 2)
Wild Tuesday Market Recap Yesterday was quite the day for the financial markets. For an appetizer, we started with S&P cutting Greek debt to junk and downgrading Portugal. For the salad course, US home prices slipped, but Consumer Confidence rose. For the main course, Goldman Sachs representatives sat in front of the Senate and fended
Interpreting Latest Existing Home Sales Data Everyone has an opinion about home sales. But most agree that new home sales are at record lows and will be slow to recover until inventory of existing homes and the foreclosure overhang are worked off in many locations around the US. Some indicators for existing home sales, however,
The S&P Case Shiller January 2010 report of existing home sales showed year-over-year -0.7% price declines averaged across 20 major metropolitan areas (see table below). This is the closest to positive since January 2007. San Francisco and Minneapolis are 15.2% and 12.9% above their trough values, and notable declines for the year-over-year period were Las
Can Mortgage Rates Actually Improve? Although we receive a break from the auctions this week, on Thursday the government announces the schedule for next week right ahead of Friday’s unemployment data. And of course tomorrow is the last day of the Fed purchase program – we end with the current coupon mortgage yield, spread to
There’s been an interesting debate about blogging economics the last couple of days between financial blogging heavyweights Felix Salmon, writer for Reuters and Henry Blodget, editor in chief of BusinessInsider. There are many layers to the debate, but each man’s core position is as follows: Salmon believes that quality of content and reporting are how
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