December 2006 - MND NewsWire

Is it the end of the end of the housing bubble? The National Association of Realtors (NAR) seemed to think so as it issued its November report on the sales of existing houses, the second month in a row when sales showed slight improvement over the previous month.

While mortgage activity was down sharply - and expectedly - during the pre-Christmas week at least one mortgage expert saw reason to hope for a busy and profitable New Year.

Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist, in releasing the results of the weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ended December 21, said, "What is interesting to note is that...

Shortly after our recent article on Zillow's upgrades was published, we received a communication from "Amy at Zillow" with a couple of corrections.

We were not particularly complementary about Zillow and its new upgrades, but two statements we made were incorrect. The first...

In a press release earlier this month, the Zillow folks announced a "major upgrade; homeowners and agents can now post homes for sale, for free." They also launched a feature called "Make Me Move?" that allows homeowners to list their dream price - the return on their investment that would indeed make them pack up and get out.

...So will these innovations revolutionize the way real estate is bought and sold? Clearly the folks at Zillow hope so. Are the changes visionary, maybe a better question would be, are they useful?

December is starting off with a bang for Fannie Mae.

On December 6 the mortgage giant announced that it had (finally) finished a restatement of its earnings dating from 2004 back to 2001 and had filed the required Form 10Ks with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A second part of the announcement was good news for the corporation's shareholders...

It has not been widely reported, but late in the closing session of the 109th Congress which adjourned this past weekend may have been a bit of good news for homeowners.

Buried deep within the Act at Section 419 was a one page attachment entitled "Premiums for Mortgage Insurance."

Probably the big news in the December 2006 Economic Outlook published by Freddie Mac's Office of the Chief Economist last Friday was that the office has finally changed its interest rate projection for the year.

The main thrust of the December Outlook, however, was answering two questions: "What will a housing recovery look like?" and "when will it arrive?"

Refinancing as a share of all mortgage activity increased to 50.1 percent from 46.9 percent the previous week. This is the highest market share that refinancing has enjoyed since...