Jumbo mortgage volume is very dependent on location. So what are borrowers in high cost areas thinking when it comes to obtaining a jumbo loan? Linda Stern of Reuters reminds us that conforming loan limit caps for high cost areas will be reduced from $729,750 to $625,500 effective October 1, and says that some borrowers [...]

Future of Fannie & Freddie January is scheduled to be a big month for Freddie and Fannie, in that the Treasury is expected to release plans for their future. Merrill Lynch released some conjecture about upcoming news, which will probably come out after the State of the Union address on 1/25. Merrill reminds us that [...]

Reshuffling Of Fed Members Is the economy really in good enough shape for the Fed to start selling their $1.25 trillion of mortgage-backed securities? I don’t think so, but maybe the press doesn’t have enough else to talk about, so the Fed possibly lightning up on their balance sheet has been receiving some publicity. Federal [...]

NAR’s Proposal for Fannie/Freddie My daughter and I went through the McDonald’s take-out window and I gave the clerk a $5 bill. Our total was $4.25, so I also handed her a quarter. She said, “You gave me too much money.” I said, “Yes I know, but this way you can just give me a [...]

Mortgage Rate/Lock Update A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. His grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, “No change yet.” We started off the week with both the stock and bond markets making a little change for investors: both improved. The folks on Wall Street, if [...]

ARMs Only 3% Of Total Agency Loans In 2009 An annual report on the ARM market published by Freddie Mac shows adjustable-rate mortgages accounted for just 3 percent of all conventional home purchase loans in 2009. That’s the smallest percentage for ARMs since at least 1982. Market & Economic News Update Yes, today we have [...]

Treasury’s Unlimited Fannie/Freddie Backing Regardless of whether or not it is good or bad for our industry, or the debate about the timing of the announcement, on Christmas Eve the U.S. Treasury agreed to provide Fannie & Freddie unlimited capital as needed over the next three years. It is an effort to reassure the investors [...]

Seven More Banks Fail, 2009 Tally At 140 Wanna buy a bank? Now is a good time to give that someone special a little something special – like a failed bank. Seven U.S. banks were taken over on Friday, and the FDIC could not find buyers for three of them. It brings the total to [...]

What is every mortgage bank’s nightmare? Some out there wake up in a cold sweat thinking about the Fed stopping their purchase program, leading to higher rates, the production volumes sink to half of what they are now, the company hasn’t set aside any money for a rainy day, and they’re hit with MI rescissions [...]

“Keep skunks and bankers at a distance” so the old saying goes. Mortgage bankers may have to ignore that saying, however, given some National Mortgage News data that shows that four companies (Wells Fargo, Bank of America Home Loan, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup) control almost 58% of the overall lending market. Wells was the largest [...]