March 2006 - MND NewsWire

Fannie Mae's Weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ended March 23 indicated that the average rates for mortgages closed that week were as follows: the 30-year fixed was at 6.32 percent with fees and ...

Loan activity was up slightly. According to the Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, there was...

Refinancing activity was down from 38.1 percent of all application during the week ended March 17 to 37.3 percent. Refinancing, however, increased from ...

The National Association of Realtors recently released an interesting report about the sale of second homes in the United States. While the survey is a little outdated, the data covers sales over five years to the end of 2004, it still provides a perspective as to who, where, and how non-primary residences are being purchased.

For example, during the years from 2001 to 2004, second home sales (which include both recreational/vacation property and investment property) more than doubled from ...

It is hard to be sympathetic to someone who cannot, as the saying goes, get out of their own way. But Fannie Mae is beginning to seem like the hapless victim of a crowd of school yard bullies determined to bring it down.

The review of Fannie's financial statements has been going on since September, 2004 and, it was reported last week, is costing $50 million per month.

After months of apparent indecisiveness, mortgages rates seem to have decided on a direction and are heading toward it.

Unfortunately that direction is up!

Both of the mortgage market surveys we track reported rates at their highest levels since mid-2002 and in one case since 2001.

The long awaited independent accounting report on Fannie Mae was released late last month, and while it sort of absolves Franklin Raines, former Chairman and CEO of the mega-mortgage company who, along with Timothy Howard the CFO lost his job at the height of the scandal, it comes down pretty hard on Howard. Interestingly, we did not find one mention of the accounting firm of KPMG which was also fired from its position of independent auditor, in the report's Executive Summary.

The report was the result of months of work by an independent commission headed by former Senator Warren B. Rudman and ...

Last week was a big week for news about the housing bubble and the quarterly House Price Index (HPI) report of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) released on March 1 was a good deal more optimistic about price growth than were the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development joint report on new home sales and the National Association of Realtors existing home sales report, both issued days earlier and both showing that sales and price increases are slowing down.

Most mortgage rates retreated ever-so-slightly during the week ended February 23, 2006 according to the Weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey conducted by Freddie Mac and the Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ended February 24 which was released Wednesday by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Freddie Mac reported that the average 30-year fixed rate for the week was...