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Inspired by my analysis of yesterday’s WSJ article, I thought I’d explore the effectiveness of low mortgage rates in getting the housing market going. I matched year-to-date sales volume where a mortgage was used and mortgage rates broken out by conforming and jumbo mortgage volume.

Mortgage volume has been falling (off an artificial high I might add) since 2005, while rates have continued to fall to new record lows, yet transaction volume has not recovered. I contend that low rates can now do no more to help housing than they already have.

Even the NAR has run out of reasons and is now focusing on bad appraisals as holding the market back (I agree appraisal quality post Dodd-Frank is terrible and is impacting the market to a limited extent – and I secretly wish appraiser held that much sway over the market).

I’m no bear, but the uptick Case Shiller’s report today (remembering that Case Shiller reflects the housing market 5-7 months ago) still shows slowing momentum and all 2012 year-over-year comparisons in the various national reports are skewed higher from an anemic 2011.

Five years of falling mortgage rates have only served to provide stability in volume. The monetary and fiscal conversation ought to be on ways to incentivize banks to ease credit – falling rates only makes them more risk averse.

Of course a significant drop in unemployment would likely solve the tight credit problem fairly quickly.

Tags: Case-Shiller, FNC, Jumbo Mortgage, Conforming Mortgage, WSJ, NAR, National Association of Realtors

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In the WSJ, FNC reported that jumbo mortgages saw a larger year-over-year gain than conforming:

Home sales using a jumbo mortgage had year-over-year growth of 7.9% through September, compared with 2.7% for nonjumbo sales, according to an analysis for The Wall Street Journal by mortgage-technology company FNC.

Could this be a sign that credit is thawing a bit more quickly at upper end of the market?

Capital Economics Ltd., in a recent research note, found that jumbo loans are going to borrowers with credit scores as low as 700, compared with 720 or higher previously, and that financing has generally reached $2 million from a previous upper limit of $1.5 million.

Anecdotal sure, but when looking at the actual jumbo mortgage data, it appears that from 2005 to 2012, mortgage volume for jumbo fell 83.1% and non jumbo fell 46.9%. In other words, jumbo mortgage volume fell 2x further than non jumbo from peak. Also, a number of the high cost markets had their base level lowered expanded what is now considered a “jumbo loan”:

Also, the floor for a jumbo loan fell in some high-cost areas last fall. In Los Angeles and New York, for example, the definition of a jumbo dropped to $625,500 and up from $729,750 and up. With the lower floor, a loan of $700,000 would now be a jumbo loan.

So the fact that jumbo volume is up 7.9% versus 2.7% reflects it being calculated from a much lower base number, and with lower jumbo thresholds, more loans are being classified as jumbo. This likely resulted in a somewhat larger jumbo market share, reaching 5.5% of total mortgages in 2012 compared to 5.2% in 2011.

My takeaway here is that jumbos are not growing at 3x the rate of conforming as FNC seems to be suggesting, but jumbos (5.5% of the first mortgage market) are more likely consistent with the balance of the mortgage market.

Since jumbos have no real secondary market to allow mortgage lenders to free up their capital to lend more, jumbos are actually performing amazingly well however you slice it, just not better than conforming mortgages.

Tags: FNC, Jumbo Mortgage, Conforming Mortgage

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In other words, the institutional entities that are responsible for ordering, reviewing, approving and managing licensed appraisers, aren’t held to the same or similar standard – Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs).

One of the byproducts of New York State Attorney General Cuomo’s agreement with Fannie Mae (HVCC), was to prevent mortgage brokers from ordering appraisals for conforming mortgages that would be purchased by Fannie Mae. That’s a good idea in general. But by doing that, most national retail banks and many regional banks, are forced by necessity to manage the appraisal process directly. Few have the overhead to do this and therefore resort to appraisal management companies. Call an 800 number and order a report anywhere in the country.

Appraisal management companies are generally paid the same fee as an independent appraiser would be, so they have to find appraisers who will work for 1/3 to 1/2 the market rate (or 2/3 the rate as their trade group claims). To differentiate, they generally require 24 to 48 turn time per assignment, yet an appraisal is not a commodity like a flood certification – it’s a professional analysis by an expert.

Here’s a classic example of the new breed of unregulated appraisal oversight. It’s worth the read. Same problem as the mortgage boom days – pressure, sloppy work, crank it out – just a different type of institution doing the ordering.

And AMCs have a trade group called TAVMA (The NAR of AMCs), which does all it can to further their mission. Here’s their recent blog post saying their fees are 60% of the market rate rather than 50% as has been my experience as well as the appraisal organizations who testified in front of Congress.

Think about it – their argument is essentially this: Taking a 40% pay cut is a whole lot better than a 50% pay cut.

Whether it’s 40-20-10 [yet even more spin] or whatever percent the fee reflects what willing sellers (appraisers) and willing buyers (AMCs) in the local marketplace are willing to accept based upon their own self-interests. To try and draw a cause-effect relationship between fee and quality before congress is a little bit disingenuous, absent hard data.

Here’s the AMC fee logic in a nutshell:

If an employer posted a job listing with a starting salary 40% below the last hire’s salary – this will result in no measurable differences in the quality of job applications received? Forget the correlation/causation argument, what about common sense?

Good grief.

For once, I agree with NAR.

Appraisal management companies are not currently regulated at the federal level and regulation at the state level varies. Regulation would ensure that AMCs operate within the same basic guidelines and standards as independent appraisers. Further, this allows AMCs to be regulated within the existing appraisal regulatory structure, which avoids the need to create additional layers of government bureaucracy.

The Appraisal Institute announced the House version of bill 1728:

Furthermore, the bill requires separation and clear disclosure of fees paid to appraisers and fees paid for appraisal administration (i.e., fees paid to appraisal management companies); prohibits the use of broker price opinions in loan origination; and requires registration, and a regulatory framework, for Appraisal Management Companies, with mechanisms to prohibit infiltration by appraisers sanctioned by state regulatory agencies.

That specific wording “and a regulatory framework, for Appraisal Management Companies, with mechanisms to prohibit infiltration by appraisers sanctioned by state regulatory agencies” reflects the situation discussed in the St. Petersburg Times article.

Here’s usually the way the process works:

• To be approved, the appraiser submits a state license and in some cases, submits a couple of sample reports.
• The appraiser agrees to the half market rate fee structure and 24-48 hour turn time requirements (market rate is 5-7 days).
• The appraiser is placed in a computerized queue and is given an assignment
• The appraiser gets 1-2 calls by young kids out of high school making sure the appraiser will turn around the assignment in 24-48 hours
• The appraiser has to be very pushy to be able to get into the property in order to turn the assignment around in time.
• If there is a valuation problem or issue that needs interpretation by the AMC, the solution is often to just disclaim the problem in the addendum somewhere.
• Little if any interaction available from qualified appraisal professionals on AMC staff
• The appraiser gets more work if the jobs are turned around faster because the queue is set to have maximum amounts allowed by an appraiser at any one time.
• Remember, the fees are half market rate. In higher cost housing markets, the fees can be as low as 1/3 the market rate because the AMC appraisal fees are often set at national rates. In other words, appraisers in Manhattan would be paid the same as North Dakota even though the cost of doing business is 4x higher in Manhattan.

Now imagine the quality and reliability of this product, which is not a commodity, but an expert opinion prepared by a professional. It’s hard imagine much professionalism squeezed in this process, isn’t it?

HR 1728 H.R. 1728: Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act was just passed by the House and Senate and is ready to be signed by POTUS. Here’s the appraisal portion.

It looks as though AMCs will be licensed just like appraisers will:

‘(7) maintain a national registry of appraisal management companies that either are registered with and subject to supervision of a State appraiser certifying and licensing agency or are operating subsidiaries of a Federally regulated financial institution.’

However, this will be more of a revenue opportunity by the states – licensing doesn’t have much to do with competence. Plus, I don’t see how states will have the manpower to provide meaningful oversight other than clerical aspects.

Mark my words here – this is an accident waiting to happen.

Tags: Conforming Mortgage, Fannie Mae, Appraisal Management Companies, HVCC, Appraisal Institute, AMC, TAVMA, REVAA, NAR, National Association of Realtors

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The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that the conforming loan limited for mortgages will remain at $417,000.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today announced the conforming loan limit will remain $417,000 for 2009 for most areas in the U.S. but specified higher limits in certain cities and counties. The conforming loan limit is the maximum size of loans that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can purchase in 2009.

According to provisions of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA), the national loan limit is set based on changes in average home prices over the previous year, but cannot decline from year to year. Loan limits for two-, three-, and four-unit properties in 2009 will remain at 2008 levels as well: $533,850, $645,300, and $801,950 respectively, for homes in the continental U.S.

In theory, if housing markets continue to fall sharply in certain parts of the country, the implied mortgage risk will actually increase because the cap on the mortgage limit can not be reduced. Of course we are in the middle of a financial crisis caused by throwing risk out the window so it’s ironic that it’s actually against the best interests of the financial market to be more conservative in this regard. Probably because that’s not really the problem.

So we keep the loan limit the same again despite:

• declining market conditions
• change the name of the agency to FHFA from OFHEO (OFHEO was responsible for oversight of Fannie and Freddie before they needed to be bailed out)
• run by the same person as before who now suggests FHFA has plenty of ammunition (no offense intended to Mr. Lockhart).

From the contrarian department…

Yet here’s something new (hat tip to Holden Lewis of Mortgage Matters) that definitely doesn’t conform to longstanding rhetoric from someone who reported last year at this time about 5 months in a row that the problem with credit was temporary…

[NAR Chief Economist Lawrence] Yun says, without giving specifics, that the federal government should step in to stabilize house prices. That’s quite a plea, coming from a representative of an organization that’s usually all for hands-off government. There’s nothing like a severe recession to make free-marketers abandon their principles with alacrity.

And the contrarian-contrarian department…

Here’s an opinion that’s contrarian to those who claim to be contrarian: lowball offers in a weak real estate market don’t work according to accomplished real estate author, writer, agent, speaker Ali Rogers, well-known for her book “Diary of a Real Estate Rookie“

Some real estate gurus would argue that that’s okay, you should go ahead and make ridiculous offers, because if you’re willing to ask a gazillion people you’ll finally run down one exhausted one who will capitulate. Then, hey, it’s like you won the lottery.

One problem with that strategy: I don’t generally think it works.

Tags: Conforming Mortgage, FHFA, Fannie Mae, Lawrence Yun, OFHEO, Bankrate.com, NAR, National Association of Realtors, Freddie Mac

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Bank earnings are down.
Way down.
Real concerns about future losses from non-performing mortgages, other credit instruments like credit cards and the need to recapitalize.

Fed policy has been pretty generous to the economy, no?

No.

Current hopeful scenario: Lower the federal funds rates a lot so that banks can lower mortgage rates to enable consumers to refi their way out of trouble for the time being or purchase a new home.

Looked good on paper…

But mortgage rates have been rising, whether it’s a jumbo or conforming, fixed or adjustable.

Banks need to recapitalize because they have been forced to lend and hold the mortgages they issue in their own portfolio.

Borrow at a low rate,
lend at a high rate.
Enjoy the spread.

Banks can lend at a higher rate because fewer banks are lending so there is less competition. In addition, the banks that are still lending have much tighter underwriting requirements compared to the past 3-4 years.

Why? Banks now have to be more accountable for risk in their mortgage lending decisions rather than offloading risk to investors, who would in turn offload the risk to other investors and so on.

It’s all about the credit markets. Until they begin to function again, banks will not be incentivized to offer lower the rates on mortgages they issue.

This is another form of “bailout.” The Fed is keeping the banking sector from imploding (opposite of spreading – very lame, sorry).

Tags: Jumbo Mortgage, Conforming Mortgage, FDIC, Bankrate.com

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There is a whole lot of oversight going on these days. OFHEO [Office of Housing Enterprise Oversight] and others are very concerned about the ability of the GSEs to avoid getting into trouble.

I wonder why there was so little oversight before the credit crunch? Was it an…oversight (sorry)?

It’s pretty scary to think that Fannie and Freddie (and HUD) are seen as the saviors of the housing market in the creation of a jumbo conforming mortgage product, expanded portfolio size and a housing market condition that continues to weaken (default rates rise as prices decline). They are already vulnerable.

Although few are predicting an imminent need for a bailout just yet, credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s recently placed an estimated price tag on this worst case scenario — $420 billion to $1.1 trillion of taxpayer’s money.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are getting a lot more attention from the Treasury Department these days.

Treasury officials have stepped up efforts to strengthen the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest buyers of home mortgages, pressing key senators to break a legislative stalemate that has lasted for years.

In OFHEOs Report to Congress, it summarizes the concerns quite efficiently:

$5.0 trillion in guaranteed mortgage-backed securities outstanding and mortgage investments. Their market share of total mortgage originations grew from 37.4 percent in 2006 to 75.6 percent by the fourth quarter of 2007. There is increasing pressure for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to do even more to support the mortgage market, which is problematic in absence of GSE reform legislation to strengthen the regulatory process.

As evidenced by the lack of market enthusiasm for the new jumbo conforming mortgage product that was supposed to help the housing market (allowing some homeowners to refi their way out of trouble – which can’t be good for FNMA’s portfolio). And OFHEO is just wrapping up actions against former FNMA executives who manipulated earnings to enhance their bonus income.

It doesn’t seem reasonable to place all of our hopes for a solution on the GSEs.

Consider oversight in the classroom: How students see their classroom today.

Tags: Jumbo Mortgage, Conforming Mortgage, Fannie Mae, GSE, OFHEO, Bailout Nation, Freddie Mac

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Back in the day, WaMu was one of the fasted growing mortgage originators and was affectionately known as the lender of last resort to mortgage brokers. Their appropriate “Power of Yes” advertising campaign was particularly accurate.

Implode-O-Meter reports that:

Washington Mutual will announce later today they are backing out of Wholesale entirely, and Retail is retreating to the bank footprint. Expect an email blast to Brokers later today.

Word is “They will leave the retail division in Jacksonville & Downers Grove” and all wholesale deals must close by June 30th.

It appears there may have been some conditions attached to that $5 billion.

Last week they reportedly allayed investor concerns that they were receiving a cash infusion of $5B.

I believe there are only a handful of national lenders left that are providing wholesale mortgage products in significant quantity. With this trend unfolding, combined with Fannie Mae’s upcoming ban on appraisal ordering by mortgage brokers, the high fees and unfavorable rates of jumbo conforming mortgages, a return to more core lending practices, proposed mortgage broker legislation, it’s not a good time to be a mortgage broker.

The mortgage bankers association expects the industry to contract in the current regulatory environment. There are many good mortgage brokers out there, but the profession needs weeding out, not unlike appraisers and real estate agents.

There is no love lost between WaMu and me because of the poor way it treated its long-time residential appraisers in 2006.

My question is: how will WaMu make money now? I had assumed wholesale mortgage origination was a big part of their business and their growth was fueled by mortgage origination. Their servicing business must be very lucrative.

UPDATE: Consolidation effort to eliminate 3,000 jobs
UPDATE 2: WaMu: Only for the Bravest of Investors

Tags: Jumbo Mortgage, Conforming Mortgage, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac

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The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which has actually had to engage in a lot of oversight as of late, has been in the unenviable position of deciding whether to expand the conforming loan limit. It has been stuck at $417,000 for the past three years. OFHEO Director James B. Lockhart, who was nominated by President Bush and approved by Congress back in 2006, just as things began to get interesting. OFHEO used to be a sleepy oversight agency, responsible for the two GSEs: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that appear to rubber stamp everthing the GSE requested. No more.

Here’s the official guidance.

President and Chief Executive Officer of Fannie Mae, Daniel Mudd agrees with Lockhart on expanding the conforming loan limits to ease the credit crunch.

OFHEO is now on the hotseat because the GSEs have become a key ingredient to restoring investor confidence in the secondary mortgage market, which is a key ingredient to returning liquidity to the credit markets. I have been fairly critical of the agency of the years, but I have to say that Lockhart’s timely and tireless actions seem to be what the doctor ordered.

In theory, the conforming loan limit should float with the housing market but as the market has been declining, the conforming mortgage ceiling has remained unchanged. OFHEO decided that the rate should not be dropped because of the existing complexity of implementing the temporary increase of the conforming loan limit beginning on Setember 1st as a step to help the credit markets.

The conforming loan limit is adjusted annually through a calculation of year-over-year October changes to the level of home prices based on data from the Federal Housing Finance Board’s (FHFB) Monthly Interest Rate Survey (MIRS). As many commenters suggested, the small and voluntary MIRS price survey is volatile, which is another reason for this guidance to emphasize stability. Pending GSE reform legislation would allow the selection of a broader and more comprehensive price index.

It sounds like there will be more transparency in selecting the way the mortgage cap will be adjusted in the future. While I think that the rate should be adjusted up and down, not just up, it’s a catch-22 really. Lowering the rate will reduce financing availability for markets on the fringe, and that in turn, will weaken certain housing markets causing more defaults. Of course, it has the potential to make investors more skittish about conventional mortgages because the risk/value relationship is being expanded (market values drop, mortgage cap remain the same, risk spread widens).

And why do we borrow until it hurts?

No offense to Daniel or Roger intended, but what’s mud spelled backwards?

Tags: Conforming Mortgage, Fannie Mae, GSE, OFHEO, Freddie Mac

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One of the things I have found particularly aggravating during the past two years has been all the coverage on foreclosure stats. I don’t think consumers (or the media) have much perspective on the stats being produced, mainly by RealtyTrac and their competitor Foreclosure.com It’s been a groundbreaking effort on their part to collect this data but here’s a sample representing my issue with all this. I actually posted about the foreclosure data perspective problem back in September2006 (I just re-read it and it is relatively coherent) but the communication problem remains.

We see huge percentage increases every single month and yet the typical reader doesn’t really know what these stats mean in the context of all mortgages outstanding other than…it’s getting worse. I don’t think I am alone in getting the feeling that 87.4% of all houses are under foreclosure (left-handed people only, while it’s 92.3% if you include right-handed people).

Here are some examples…

From the New York Times

Statistics on foreclosure are snapshots of a moving phenomenon, and data from the state labor department show 174 foreclosures in Belair-Edison last year, while the Community Law Center, a nonprofit public service group, counted 181; both figures are well below the more than 275 foreclosures in 2001 and in 2002.

From Forbes

In February, Florida trailed only Nevada and California in the percentage of homes in foreclosure. RealtyTrac Inc. said 32,447 homes were in foreclosure statewide in February, up more than 69 percent from February of last year and up more than 7 percent from January.

Back in October 2007, the OTS released the first Monthly Market Monitor (creatively called MMM). It referred to the mortgage problem as the “Mortgage Malaise” (2 M’s if you were wondering) The most recent issue was released on wednesday referring to the mortgage markets in “disarray”. The MMM charts are really useful because they show the pace of foreclosures in an historical context and the amount of foreclosures relative to the amount of mortgages outstanding. The info on these charts are what we need to see more of.

Here’s a housing summary from the March 2008 report:

The slump in the housing market has not only impacted residential construction, but lending and loan performance have deteriorated in concert. Non‐conforming loan originations fell 49 percent in the fourth quarter, as the secondary market for bonds backed by the collateral is still shuttered. According to data collected by Inside Mortgage Finance, approximately $84.5 billion of non‐conforming loans were originated in the quarter ending in December 2007, comprising just 19.9 percent of total loan production. This is the lowest volume of originations ever, and is a far cry from the peak origination period of 2005, when the total reached $1.58 trillion, or 50.4 percent of all production.6 By loan type, jumbo production fell 47 percent in the fourth quarter, plummeting to $44 billion, or less than 10% of all originations. The downturn in Alt‐A and subprime loan production persist, with fourth quarter volume at $27 billion and $13.5 billion, respectively.

In contrast to non‐conforming product, FHA/VA loan production rose steadily in 2007, from a low of $19.0 billion in the first quarter to $31.0 billion at the end of the year. Activity in government‐insured lending was twice that of subprime.

Even Treasury Secretary Paulson is giving us better perspective of foreclosure stats in his speech to the US Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday:

Home foreclosures are also a significant issue today. Foreclosures are painful and costly to homeowners and, neighborhoods. They also prolong the housing correction by adding to the inventory of unsold homes. Before quickly reviewing our initiatives to prevent avoidable foreclosures, let me observe that some current headlines make it difficult to put foreclosure rates in perspective. So let me try to do so.

First, 92 percent of all homeowners with mortgages pay that mortgage every month right on time. Roughly 2 percent of mortgages are in foreclosure. Even from 2001 to 2005, a time of solid U.S. economic growth and high home price appreciation, foreclosure starts averaged more than 650,000 per year.

Last year there were about 1.5 million foreclosures started and estimates are that foreclosure starts might be as high as 2 million in 2008. These foreclosures are highly concentrated – subprime mortgages account for 50 percent of foreclosure starts, even though they are only 13 percent of all mortgages outstanding. Adjustable rate subprime mortgages account for only 6 percent of all mortgages but 40 percent of the foreclosures. So we are right to focus many of our policies on subprime borrowers.

There are approximately 7 million outstanding subprime mortgage loans. Available data suggests that 10 percent of subprime borrowers were investors or speculators. This figure is likely higher, as some investors misrepresented themselves to take advantage of a cheaper rate, and others speculated on a primary residence, expecting prices to continue going up.

And if you can’t keep track of foreclosures because it’s too confusing, try something simple like converting your phone number into words.

Tags: Jumbo Mortgage, Conforming Mortgage, FHA, Forbes, Sub-Prime

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This is huge.

Federal regulators said Wednesday they would allow mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reduce the capital they are required to keep on hand, a move that could pump $200 billion into mortgage markets.

The rule change was announced by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, (OFHEO), a normally low-profile agency which sets rules for the two government sponsored companies that between them hold or guarantee nearly $5 trillion in mortgages.

Here’s the OFHEO press release.

OFHEO estimates that Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s existing capabilities, combined with this new initiative and the release of the portfolio caps announced in February, should allow the GSEs to purchase or guarantee about $2 trillion in mortgages this year. This capacity will permit them to do more in the jumbo temporary conforming market, subprime refinancing and loan modifications areas.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (as well as FHA) have evolved into critical roles in stabilizing the credit market panic and have assumed important roles in providing greater liquidity to the mortgage markets, a key component in avoiding long term damage to the economy.

The OFHEO assures us that the 20% capital requirement is enough cushion for safety and the GSEs will begin to aggressively raise capital starting now. The $200B in extra funds will allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy more mortgage securities and new home loans and increase mortgage guarantees.

Not too sound too rah rah here but I am amazed that we continue to see creative solutions to the credit crisis, seemingly everyday. Of course OFHEO missed the boat while the problems developed but at least now we are seeing some action.

Mandatory reading today: Can’t Grasp Credit Crisis? Join the Club by the NYT’s David Leonhardt. Please read it.

Raise your hand if you don’t quite understand this whole financial crisis.

Tags: Jumbo Mortgage, Conforming Mortgage, FHA, Fannie Mae, GSE, OFHEO, Sub-Prime, Freddie Mac

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New York State Attorney General Cuomo is close to striking a deal with the two mortgage GSE’s Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to instill some separation between the quality and sales function of banks that do business with them. Although this was initiated by New York, the deal would have ramifications for all lenders of conforming loan products that sell their mortgage paper.

Its not a done deal yet but its being reported as “close” by the Wall Street Journal’s Amir Efrati in this morning’s article Deal Nears to Curb Home-Appraisal Abuse. Here’s my contribution:

Jonathan J. Miller, a veteran New York appraiser and longtime critic of industry practices, said the proposed deal “sounds like a promising step, and that Mr. Cuomo’s office is addressing some of the key problems that appraisers have had to deal with and that have led to the disconnect between value and risk in the mortgage markets.” He estimates that home values are overvalued nationwide by at least 10% because of inflated appraisals.

My 10% estimation is very conservative and was based on my New York area experience and interactions with colleagues across the country.

Reuters and American Banker have also issued stories on the negotiations.

The deal proposes the following actions by Fannie and Freddie:

• They will not do business with lenders that use in-house appraisers.
• They will not buy mortgages from lenders that who use appraisals from wholly owned subsidiaries. (I believe this would apply to Landsafe, Countrywide’s Appraisal Management company).
• Require lenders not to use appraisals arranged by individual mortgage brokers.
• Create a clearinghouse for appraiser information and provide reports to the public.

Note: I will be updating this post throughout the day – the ramifications are huge

Tags: Conforming Mortgage, Fannie Mae, GSE, Sub-Prime, Freddie Mac

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Well its official, a beagle finally won the Westminster Dog Show after being shut out since 1874 Roger Clemens finally testified in front of Congress today President Bush signed the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, describing it as a “booster shot” for the American economy.

The bill I’m signing today is large enough to have an impact, amounting to more than $152 million this year, or about 1 percent of the GDP (gross domestic product),” the president said in the brief ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

About 130M Americans are going to get rebate checks by May.

A recent Associated Press-Ipos poll indicates most people have other plans. Forty-five percent said they planned to pay off bills, while 32 percent said they would save or invest it. Only 19 percent said they would spend their rebates.

The relevant benefit, as it relates to housing, concerns the expansion of the conforming loan limit from $417,000 to $729,750. However there have been concerns raised, based on past issues, with the GSE’s ability to manage the additional risk and the distraction that this temporary increase will have with their mission to encourage affordable housing (I think Paulson’s primary concern is the additional risk exposure because I fail to see how this prevents the GSE’s from their mission).

The temporary conforming loan limit expansion is still unknown and may prove to be of little benefit. As new mortgages that were once jumbos become conforming, the following could happen:

• Payments could drop because conforming loans are lower risk (in theory) and therefore have lower rates.
• Wall Street investors who buy mortgage-backed securities could demand a premium for the larger loans now purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so rates may not change at all or could fall in between the current rates for conforming and jumbo.
• The economy could get worse which seems likely given the FOMC futures market prediction of a 50% probability that the FOMC will drop rates by 50 basis points at their next meeting.

Tags: Jumbo Mortgage, Conforming Mortgage, Fannie Mae, GSE, Freddie Mac

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