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My five-year-old nephew wanted to caddy for my brother's golf game. "You have to count my strokes," my brother told him. "How much is six plus nine plus eight?" "Five," answered the nephew. "Okay," my brother said, "let's go.." Mortgage banking...
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Attack of the FHA loan files? Most of the United States begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and reverts to standard time on the first Sunday in November. So by my calculations, that means that this Sunday here in the U.S. most of us "fall back" and it will...
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Not a week goes by that someone doesn't send me a script for a Hollywood movie based on mortgage banking . Usually it is either a) zany comedy starring Ben Stiller as a loan agent who doesn't know that the jumbo market has gone away, with Samuel L. Jackson as an irate borrower, b) an intense...
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Time seems to fly in the mortgage banking business. Here we are, less than a week until the national conference in San Diego. Heck, here we are approaching Halloween! And I know that I am getting old when I wake up with that “morning-after feeling” and I didn't do anything the night before...
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What’s not clear from yesterday's announcement is whether or not Fannie and Freddie are acting strategically or at the behest of Treasury or FHFA. Strategically this makes a lot of sense since the GSE’s have long supported a diverse market of loan sellers: credit unions, community banks...
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Programs are underway on so many fronts to get foreclosures under control that it can be difficult to sort them all out. Early last week the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of Comptroller of the Currency issued their second quarter summary of foreclosure avoidance activity among large loan...
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Out here in California, some in the business have been following the case of 28-yr old Garret Gililland III. Originally from the Sacramento area, he was just captured in Spain and brought back to California to face charges of a $100 million mortgage fraud ring. In yet another example of what seems to...
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The Federal Reserve today reported on their weekly purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS). In the five trading days between August 13 and August 19, the Federal Reserve purchased a gross total of $26.640 billion agency MBS. After subtracting sales (providing liquidity/the roll) the Fed's...
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After two weeks of modest increases, mortgage rates drifted down during the week ended August 6 according to results of Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey released on Thursday. The 30-year fixed rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 5.22 percent for the week compared to 5.25 percent a week earlier...
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The White House today responded to recent questions raised, among other places, by an article in today's Washington Post, about the potential phasing-out, combination, or replacement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by saying that "the story out today is light years ahead of any decision making...
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Home buyers and refinancers waiting and hoping for a return of record low rates suffered a setback last week as fixed rates reversed a three-week downward trend. According to data from Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey released this morning, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) rose...
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Mortgage interest rates dropped again this week according to the results of Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ended July 9. 30-year fixed-rate mortgages (FRM) had an average rate for the week of 5.20 percent with 0.7 point, down from the previous week when it averaged 5...
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Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ended June 18 showed significant decreases in all mortgage products although they are still above the record low territory of late spring. The 30-year fixed rate mortgage (FRM) dropped to 5.38 percent with 0.7 point from the average of 5.59...
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Interest rates continued to increase during the week ended June 11 according to results of Freddie Mac’s weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey released this morning. Three of the four average rates tracked by the survey were the highest of the current year. According to the survey the 30-year fixed...
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After months of low rates some of which broke long-time records, mortgage interest rates shot up drastically during the week ended June 4. Freddie Mac released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market survey this morning, showing that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) for the week averaged 5.29...