While “hardest hit” areas like Phoenix and Las Vegas still dominate media coverage of the housing market doldrums, around the country markets previously considered to be “stable” despite the crash are starting to cave. This “new wave of distress” is probably not surprising to residents of these areas who may have been experiencing low prices, high foreclosure inventories and difficulties selling for some time, but many “outside” analysts who believed that “economically diversified cities” would emerge relatively unscathed are finding themselves to be painfully incorrect[1]. According to a report from …

According to information released by government-controlled Freddie Mac this week, cash-out refi’s hit an all-time low in the fourth quarter of 2010 as only 16 percent of homeowners refinancing opted to cash in on their equity. Nearly half of all refinancing homeowners (46%) decided to do a “cash-in” refi, meaning that they lowered their principal balance at closing by paying additional money in[1]. During the third quarter of 2010, 35 percent of all refinancing homeowners opted for cash-in refi’s.
Frank Nothaft, vice president of Freddie Mac and the GSEs chief economist, …

As newly-elected Republican congressmen and women attempt to hold true to the values that got them elected by initiating cuts in government backing for home mortgages, leaders in the housing industry are making it known that they are less than pleased with their long-time allies[1]. Banking executives and mortgage investors are holding meetings with both republican lawmakers and their staff members to try and elicit a commitment that they will make the government’s role in guaranteeing mortgages a permanent one. However, thus far, many republicans are holding firm. Representative Spencer …

January 2-7, 2011
Major Commercial Developer Sees Commercial Real Estate Indicators as “100 Percent Positive”
Jan. 03, 2011 – CB Richard Ellis chief executive Brett White considers 2011 commercial real estate indicators to be “100 percent positive,” he told the Washington Post[1]. “There is no question that we are in the early days of a recovery phase,” he said, adding that investors’ sentiments are “strongly positive” and that businesses are looking years (instead of only months) into the future. White added that “vacancies have clearly peaked in almost every market and every …

It is human nature: when things are starting to look up, people tend to relax a bit causing things to slip once more. This is why a government sponsored enterprise and a large mortgage lender warn of deeper problems amidst better third quarter returns as compared to that of last year’s.
Third quarter net loss for government-owned finance company Freddie Mac has been narrowed to $2.5 billion; last year, it was at $5.4 billion. And as delinquency rates edge down, credit losses reserves decline to $3.7B versus $5B in 2nd quarter. …

Goals are very important, especially within an economy that seems to still be on the downhill.
The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) requires the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to establish the mortgage market goals for different target segments. The Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae conservator, therefore, has released its final housing goals for the government-sponsored enterprises. These new rules will apply for the year 2010 to 2011.
The recently established rules have three goals: one for single-family, owner-occupied home purchases; one for very low-income families; and another one …

As federal authorities sift through on possible clues to determine the root cause of Freddie Mac’s and Fannie Mae’s collapse in September 2008, The Federal Housing Finance Agency revealed Thursday last week that the two companies mainly succumbed to soured loans and their assumed role of mortgages guarantors.
The federal regulator seeks the probable explanation to avert replicating the huge real estate avalanche that sent shock-waves to the nation’s housing industry and also aid federal efforts in restructuring the companies.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner scored the companies’ flawed practice of borrowing from …

Government officials and finance executives are set to meet on Tuesday to possibly discuss the resolution of the nation’s housing market industry, which alarmingly emitted signals of reverting to its troubled state two years ago.
Many would recall that in 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac became household names not because they facilitated the acquisition of volumes of American homes but because they represented the housing market ills which saw the collapse of the industry as thousands of homes were foreclosed while the two companies ran to the federal government begging …

Freddie Mac continues to lose profit in the second quarter of the year. With a net loss of $4.7 billion, Freddie Mac asks the U.S. Treasury for a $1.8 billion infusion.
The mortgage-finance company, which is on its 11th quarter loss, has now increased the government’s rescue tab to $63.1 billion. Though the credit losses are at $5 billion, it is slightly lower than the previous months – thanks to slower delinquent mortgages and improving home prices. Low interest rates, though, plus backlog accounting of delinquent loans led to $3.8 billion …