First Time Home Buyers
From the monthly archives: July 2008
Mortgage bonds are currently trading down 38 basis points after yesterday’s 28 basis point recovery.
This is primarily driven by Philly Fed President Plosser who said “inflation is too high.” As we’ve discussed, bonds hate inflation and mortgage rates go up in times of higher inflation. Mr. Plosser continued, stating that the Fed must “back [...]
Continue Reading →Mortgage bonds took a beating in the last four trading sessions. Today, they are up slightly on the session.
Bank of America posted better than expected earnings today, but it’s been an otherwise tame day. The Beige Book report hits on Wednesday, but it should be a relatively quiet week in terms of economic reports.
[...]
Continue Reading →It’s been an absolutely brutal week for mortgage bonds and today has been no exception. Mortgage bonds are down another 50 basis points today and there are no reports scheduled for release today.
Let’s get this in perspective. We are off 220+ basis points…this week!
In the news today, Merrill and Microsoft reported worse than [...]
Continue Reading →Mortgage bonds are in a freefall today.
We’re currently off 91 basis points. This, loosely, would mean that the same rate would cost nearly 1% ($2,000 on a $200,000 loan) just four hours later.
Once again, it’s a volatile market.
Stocks are up after decent earnings were posted by a few major corporations and equities [...]
Continue Reading →The Consumer Price Index was reported today and came in higher than expected. On the heels of yesterday’s Producer Price Index at a jaw-dropping 9%+ reading, this was not entirely unexpected.
Mortgage rates are higher today as a result as inflation is still a concern. This is for both conforming (Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac) [...]
Continue Reading →Inflation reminder: As inflation goes up, so do mortgage rates.
In the news today: The Year over Year Producer Price Index, a measure of producer costs that can indicate whether costs will need to be passed onto the consumer (read: inflation) came in 9.2% higher in June. This is the highest reading since June 1981 [...]
Continue Reading →CNN’s has run headlines including meltdown, bailout, and collapse again. That’s just this past week and that was just including searches on “Fannie Mae.”
In the past few days, we’ve seen Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and regional bank concerns dominate headlines.
Here’s a quick, simple Q&A regarding this weekend’s news:
Q: What [...]
Continue Reading →Home Equity Lines of Credit from major retail banks have been frozen. Including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citibank, SunTrust, USAA, Wachovia, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo, many major banks have frozen lines of credit.
I have heard from borrowers who have had National City, Harris Bank, [...]
Continue Reading →The implicit guarantee by the Federal Government for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac funds just became a little more explicit today. Treasury Secretary Paulson asked Congress for the authority to buy equity and lend money to the big mortgage poolers. Additionally, the Federal Reserve extended direct lending permissions to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
This [...]
Continue Reading →FHA loans are the safest loans that still allow for financial creativity.
This week, we’ve reviewed a few aspects of the major FHA overhaul on Monday, July 14th. They’ve included:
Credit-driven fees or premiums charged to lower credit scores Options for Refinances FHA for Condominium Purchases Pre-arranging FHA financing as a tool for [...]
Continue Reading →