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 [...]

Following two months of declining rates that took us back to all-time rate lows not seen since May, rates climbed about .25% in the past two weeks. There are three main reasons for this: (1) the Fed has trimmed its weekly buying of mortgage bonds from about $25b per week to $20b per week. Less [...]

Everyone makes mistakes, and estimates are only that: estimates. The MBAA, who is pretty good at estimates, believes that mortgage originations will hit $1.5 trillion in 2010. This follows Wells Fargo and JPMorgan’s estimates (or at least the last one that I had heard) of volumes of about $1 trillion. Either way, it seems that [...]

RATE/MARKET UPDATE This is the sixth consecutive week with rates hovering just above record lows we saw from January to through May 21. That day began a massive mortgage bond selloff caused by bond oversupply concerns. It was the pre-summer kickoff of an unprecedented campaign of Treasury security issuance to raise money for government economic [...]

Well, we haven’t had a well known mortgage company collapse for quite some time, and you can bet that the folks at Taylor, Bean, & Whitaker are hoping that streak continues. Unfortunately they are spending their time in damage control. The latest development is an investigation by HUD after allegedly failing to submit a required [...]

Yesterday I had a showering discussion with my 17-yr old son. Specifically, I asked him why, as it seemed to me, he hadn’t showered since around Easter. He explained that in Biology class they had learned that every animal has a certain set of resident flora and fauna on their bodies, and bathing was actually [...]

There’s been a lot of chatter about whether the $8000 homebuyer tax credit can be used toward down payments. Most recently, HUD said the tax credit can go for down payments and here’s a press report on it:

My daughter came to me the other day and wanted some money, which I refused to give her. She then began ranting about “microloans”, how in 2006 the Nobel Prize for economics went to the fellow who pioneered the concept, and about how I was stifling the US economy by not giving her money. I [...]

Recently General Motors reported a $6 billion first-quarter loss, and are approaching Chapter 11. My son said that once they get through bankruptcy GM probably want to go back to making cars that nobody wants.

I called my stock broker yesterday after the market closed to find out how my portfolio of various industries had done. He replied, “Helium was up, balloon prices were inflated, but paper was stationary. Knives were up sharply but pencils lost a few points. Hiking equipment was trailing. Elevators rose, while escalators continued a slow [...]