[Editors Note: Rob Chrisman is on a cycling vacation this week so he's asked some guest writers to step in on DailyBasis. Today, we start with mortgage banking vet Steve Emory.] The press still talks about how loans with stated income or 100% financing were the root of our problems. But subprime has been gone [...]

Rates Up On New Home Sales & Durable Goods Numbers Today we had Durable Goods (very volatile) and a big New Home Sales number. Durable Goods were expected to be +.3% for March and originally reported as +.5% in February, the third consecutive monthly increase (although most of the gain in February’s number was due [...]

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, [...]

Lawmakers Solicit Consumer Comments On 7 Financial & Housing Reform Topics Do you want some input in financial reform? There are many ways to do this, and here is another. The public will have the opportunity to submit written responses to seven questions that will be published in the federal register online at www.regulations.gov. The [...]

New Bank Definition I thought I knew what a bank was, until those clever folks at the internet gave me something else to contemplate. Groundhog Day Predictions Worse Than Coin Toss Happy Groundhog Day. Few offices outside of Punxsutawney, PA use this as a holiday, whereby since 1887 if the groundhog (Punxsutawney Phil) sees his [...]

First Bank Failure of 2010 The first bank to fail this year is Horizon Bank (WA), with 18 branches that are now being run by Washington Federal Savings and Loan Association, who also assumed all of Horizon’s $1.1 billion of deposits. More On Friday’s Jobs Report As you can imagine, the economists spent the weekend [...]

Since sending the WeeklyBasis 2010 Rate Outlook this Monday (as opposed to normal Friday delivery), rates are still holding. See below for current levels as of the end of mortgage bond trading today. Now onto the critical alert for the week: Homebuyers intending to use FHA loans to finance condo purchases should be advised that [...]

The big news yesterday, were the minutes from the mid-December Fed meeting (with the usual 3 week lag). You can see The Basis Point’s full summary here. In short, The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) still sees a modest recovery this year, e.g., one that will bring only a “slow improvement” in the nation’s severe [...]

Employees at a pizzeria in Ireland were fired for watching porn on the job. Isn’t that disgusting? Irish people attempting to make pizza! Small to Mid Size Mortgage Companies Expanding What isn’t disgusting is the number of mortgage companies which are interested in expanding. For example, First Centennial Mortgage, out of Illinois, is sending out [...]

HUD announced today that second appraisals are no longer required for FHA loans above $417,000. Previously, the guideline stated that anyone receiving an FHA loan greater than $417,000 AND making a down payment of less than 5% would need to have two appraisals done on the property as part of the loan approval. FHA eliminated [...]