Bailout Stalled Out Negotiations are scheduled to resume at 8:30AM PST on the bailout plan in an attempt to reach an agreement. Democrats are insisting that a majority of Republicans support the proposal because Democrats do not want to campaign for the November election against opponents who say that the incumbent Democrats bailed out big
New Home Sales
The Commerce Department reported that sales of new single family homes in July 2008 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 515,000. The estimates come from U.S. Census and HUD data. This is 2.4 percent above the revised June rate of 503,000, but is 35.3 percent below the July 2007 estimate of 796,000. The
Agents enjoy talking about the great the loans are that are being originated now, and “Why wouldn’t investors want to buy them?” On the flip side, this is just what mortgage investors don’t want to see: headline stories about how mortgage fraud is still going strong. MORE ON DOWN PAYMENT ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS Here is more
Islamic finance firms help Muslim customers buy homes without compromising their religious principles. Islam forbids charging interest in the belief that it exploits people, but it allows making money off actual goods. Usually the home buyer purchases their home jointly with the “finance company”, and then pays rent and eventually buys the company out of
Fixed and ARM rates are up about .2% over the past two weeks. Rates were actually higher as recently as last Thursday because higher consumer and producer inflation data caused bond markets to sell off, pushing yields up. But then renewed credit crunch woes started coming back into the picture. This week it’s been led
I made a mistake today. The “recency effect” says that a person best remembers items from last on a list. One offshoot is that people also tends to remember the last song that they heard on the radio before turning it off, and has that song running through their head all day. For me this
Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn’t much, but the reception was excellent. Many loan agents seem to think that declining markets policies, embraced by investors, will soon go away, and point to Freddie & Fannie’s recent announcements 95 and 97% LTV’s. But in my narrow field
As one trading desk reported, “…mortgage spreads benefited early in the day from overseas buying and spreads tightened. But MBS’s then lagged and spreads moved wider, and by the end of the day mortgage spreads were at their widest levels of the day which happened to be on spread to the previous day…” Huh? Although
Many prognosticators (who are different than procrastinators) feel that money managers created the current turmoil by failing to take risk seriously, allowing borrowers with lower credit to borrow money nearly as cheaply as A-paper borrowers. And they feel that it is not the taxpayer’s duty to bail them out. If your 16-yr old recklessly loses
Fixed and ARM rates are about even following last week’s Fed meeting. Rates dropped about .25% for the two trading sessions ahead of the Fed meeting then rose right back up after the Fed cut the bank-to-bank Fed Funds Rate and the Fed-to-bank Discount Rate by 75 basis points each. These rates are to encourage
Fixed and ARM rates are up by almost .5% since last week, and we’re still seeing .25% to .375% swings from day to day. Rates drop on recession concerns and rise on inflation concerns, and markets can’t decide which is the bigger issue. This is the reason for the volatility, and rates are up because
Fixed and ARM rates open even this week over last week. Bond yields, which set the tone for mortgage rates, dropped last week on benign inflation data and on Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s comments that the housing sector could see more weakness in the wake of another “$50 to $100 billion” in losses on bad
Fixed and ARM rates have been even for about a month despite all of the trouble with the sub-prime sector. A spill-over into the rest of the mortgage industry seems unlikely, especially if lawmakers can stop themselves from making new laws after the fact. In the face of new regulations, sub-prime borrowers wouldn’t stand a
Fixed and ARM rates open this week down by .125%, following a recession warning former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan made this morning. His warning was vague and called for the economic slowdown to come later in the year, but it was enough to give us a rate drop. The key focus for this week will
Rates are down almost .25% this week following weaker than expected Retail Sales and Consumer Price Index data last week. It’s a good thing too since last week opened at two-year highs. Tonight Fed chairman Ben Bernanke will make public comments ahead of next Tuesday’s Fed meeting where we can expect a .25% hike in
For the second week in a row, fixed and ARM rates opened roughly even. Markets are keeping an eye on New Home Sales data today and Existing Home Sales data tomorrow. New Home Sales were 5% lower in January than in December, extending the slowing streak to four of the past six months. But year-over-year
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