Despite the recent turmoil, Ocwen’s president and CEO, Ron Faris, said he expects his company to have a profitable 2015. "I am encouraged by the progress Ocwen has made so far,” Faris said. “We currently expect to … meet all of our ongoing financial and servicing obligations.”
Read More »Reverse Mortgages Will Soon be Tougher to Get
By 2013, the FHA‒‒the nation’s largest insurer of reverse mortgages‒‒received it’s first-ever bailout of $1.7 billion. At the same time, HECM defaults started to rise. By the middle of 2013, more than a half-million HECMs remained outstanding and the default rate hovered around 10 percent.
Read More »Fed Seeks Input on Proposed Regulatory Changes
The Fed wants to permit interest payments on certain balances to be based on a daily rate, rather than on a maintenance period average rate, as it has existed for years. It is proposing to rewrite rules defining interest on reserve-balance (IORR) and interest on excessive-balance (IOER) rates.
Read More »Fannie Mae Encourages New Mortgage Borrowers to Shop Around
In the latest Fannie Mae National Housing Survey, studying the mortgage shopping experience homebuyers navigate these days, the authors found that two-thirds of buyers‒‒particularly the young and those who’ve already bought homes‒‒obtain multiple mortgage quotes, though newbies to the process typically rely on friendly advice to find a suitable lender and terms.
Read More »Federal Home Loan Bank of New York and MAX Exchange Pair Up to Expand Mortgage Services
The Federal Home Loan Bank of New York this week announced that it will partner with Atlanta-based mortgage clearing house Mortgage Asset Exchange (MAX Exchange) to launch a pilot program that will allow certain FHLBNY members to sell conforming and jumbo residential whole loan mortgages on an open exchange platform.
Read More »Cash Sales Continue Steady Decline in Home Market
Since the beginning of 2013, cash purchases have comprised a steadily eroding share of the market en route to pre-crash averages. Prior to 2008, cash sales on average made up a quarter of the sale market nationally. Cash sales reached their peak during the worst of the recession, topping out at 46.5 percent in January 2011.
Read More »Mortgage Applications Rose with Credit Availability in March
As for credit availability, Fratantoni said that “a number of factors contributed to a loosening of credit in March.” One factor is Freddie Mac's introduction of its 97 percent LTV program, which allows for as little as 3 percent down payment on a new home purchase. Other factors included looser parameters on jumbo loan programs, increased cash-out refinance loans offerings, and the growth of FHA’s VA Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan.
Read More »NAHB Says Single-Family Residential Construction Generates Millions for Communities
According to the findings, construction of 100 single-family homes pumps an average of $28.7 million in income into a typical local economy in the first year. This, the NAHB says, adds $3.6 million to local tax rolls while providing 394 new jobs. Annually recurring benefits after construction is completed, on average, generate $4.1 million in local income, $1 million in taxes, and 69 local jobs
Read More »Freddie Mac Finds Mortgage Rate Drop Amid Underwhelming Job Growth
Variable-rate mortgages were down as well. According to Freddie, 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 2.83 percent this week, down from last week’s 2.92 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 3.09 percent. However, 1-year Treasury-indexed ARMs maintained at 2.46 percent, almost unchanged from a year ago.
Read More »Fed Officials Debating Over Whether to Raise Interest Rates
Officials at the Federal Reserve could not agree whether to raise interest rates this year, according to the minutes of the Fed’s March meeting, released Wednesday.
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