April 2009 - MND NewsWire

The Mortgage Bankers Association today released it's survey on mortgage application activity for the week ending April 24th. The index, which measures both purchase and refinance volume as reported by mortgage bankers, commercial banks, and thrifts, fell from 1170.2 to 960.6 which is a decrease of 18.1%. The year over year decrease stands at 62.7% Refinance transactions, down 21.9% to 5108.2 versus 6540.7 a week earlier, accounted for a majority of the drop. The purchase indeces were down as

Some U.S. house price data and consumer confidence figures top the day's main economic events on Tuesday, along with some central bank speakers from the Bank of Canada and European Central Bank. At 9 a.m. EDT, S&P and Case Shiller will release

New home sales in the U.S. fell slightly in March due to a strong upward revision to the previous month's figure, the Department of Commerce reported Friday. New home sales fell to an annualized pace of 356k, a 0.6% decrease from February, the report

U.S. durable goods and new home sales are the main economic data releases of the day, as the G7 finance ministers meet in Washington D.C. At 8:30 a.m. EDT, the U.S. Department of Commerce will release its March durable goods report. Economists expect

Mortgage interest rates continued to inch downward during the week ended April 23 and long term fixed rates are now an out-and-out better deal than ARMs from day one. Freddie Mac's weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey released this morning reported that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.80 percent with an average of 0.7 point for the week compared to 4.82 percent with 0.6 percent during the week ended April 16. The 30-year reached an all time low of 4.78 percent during the week

Despite an expected rise in weekly U.S. initial jobless claims, some economists are encouraged by a continued drop in the four-week average of claims, which they say could suggest the end of the recession. Others say seasonal factors are continuing to

Score one for transparency. Time was that bamboo shoots under the fingernails couldn't get Freddie or Fannie to fess up that they owned this mortgage or that one. As a representative of a government regulatory agency I once fought with a Freddie Mac official for an hour over a request for confirmation that it held a lien on a property senior to the one we held. I retired to my corner defeated. But the mortgage mess has forced both GSEs to open their books and now a homeowner can find out to whom