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Tag Archives: HUD

New Home Sales See Steepest Decline in 13 Months

New homes sales fell 7.1 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 328,000, the steepest percentage decline since February 2011, according to the Commerce Department. Sales for January were revised upward from 313,000 to 353,000. Economists had expected the report to show a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 318,000 new home sales in March. New-home sales in March were up 7.5 percent from March 2011. The median price of a new home fell 1.0 percent in March to $234,500, but was up 6.3 percent from March 2011.

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HUD Swears in Rhodes Scholar, Publisher as Deputy Secretary

HUD swore in a Virginia-based publisher with British credentials as deputy secretary Wednesday. Confirmed by the Senate in late March, Maurice Jones stepped up to serve as the federal agency├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós second senior-most official. Jones arrives at his new position with considerable credentials. Graduating from Hampden-Sydney College, he snagged a Rhodes scholarship to study and later pick up a degree from the University of Oxford. He later graduated from the University of Virginia with a juris doctor.

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Multifamily Surge Leads Housing Permits to Four-Year High

Housing permits surged another 4.5 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 747,000, the highest level since September 2008, the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development reported jointly Tuesday. At the same time though, housing starts fell for the third time in the last four months to the lowest level since last October. March housing starts were reported at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 654,000 compared with 694,000 in February. Starts have been flat for the past three years.

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HUD Debars Mortgage Loan Officers, Title Agent

HUD signed off on debarment Monday for three South Florida loan officers and a Pittsburgh title agent following convictions that found the four had reaped $2.5 million in reverse mortgage fraud. In a statement, the federal agency said that juries of their peers convicted loan officers Marcos Echevarria, Louis Gendason, and John Incandela for their roles in systematically identifying, then pressuring elderly homeowners to trade up their home loans for reverse mortgages. The three reportedly also committed appraisal fraud by exaggerating values for the properties to seize more funds.

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GFI Sued for Alleged Discriminatory Lending Practices

A lawsuit was filed against GFI Mortgage Bankers alleging it charged African American and Hispanic borrowers higher interest rates and fees on mortgage loans because of their race rather than their creditworthiness, the U.S. Justice Department announced in a statement Tuesday. The complaint was filed in the Southern District of New York under the federal Fair Housing Act and Equal Credit Opportunity Act. According to the statement, GFI knew that its loan officers priced loans based on factors that resulted in thousands of dollars in overcharges for minority borrowers.

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HUD Permanently Bars Lender From FHA Insurance

A Dallas-based lender lost privileges Friday when HUD announced that it had permanently banned it from underwriting and originating new mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration. Effective immediately, AmericaHomeKey, Inc., will no longer have the ability to churn out loans guaranteed by federal mortgage insurance. The department leveled a number of charges against AHK, claiming that it failed to properly document borrower eligibility for loans in accordance with closing costs, income requirements, and unallowable fees.

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Single-Family Starts Plunge, Permits Increase in February

Housing starts fell 1.1 percent in February to 698,000, compared with market expectations for a smaller decline, the Census Bureau and HUD jointly reported Tuesday. Single-family starts plunged 9.9 percent to 457,000, the steepest decline in a year, according to the agencies. The starts suggest strongly January's unexpectedly strong report was influenced by unseasonably warm weather, which pulled starts forward. Single-family starts have been weak for the past three years. Housing permits, unaffected by weather, rose 5.1 percent in February.

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Settlement Helps Fund $4M in Reverse Mortgage Assistance

On Friday HUD unveiled an infusion of more than $42 million in grants to housing counseling agencies, with some of the funds on the way from an historic $25-billion settlement reached with servicers several weeks ago. Of $36 million in grants made available to housing counseling agencies, $4 million will shore up services designed to help more elderly homeowners secure reverse mortgages and Home Equity Conversion Mortgages. More than 400 housing agencies across the nation will benefit from the availability of a flush of new funds.

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NAHB Proposes Plan to Overhaul Secondary Market

A prominent housing trade group joined a growing roster of policy makers by outlining ways to take the GSEs off federal conservatorship, reintroduce private mortgage-backed securities, and charge existing government entities with stewardship of the new system. The National Association of Home Builders released a white paper Monday that calls on lawmakers to slowly transition a system dominated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to one that shares and balances responsibility. The proposal comes as others arrive from lawmakers and policy makers to replace the GSEs.

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