Mortgage Rates fell to the lowest this year !
Related Posts: Credit & Finance, Government, Real Estate News
hiMortgage rates fell this week to the lowest level of the year, as rates fell on U.S. government securities. Fixed mortgage rates closely track interest rates paid on long-term Treasury bonds. The average rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage dipped to 4.93 percent this week from 5 percent a week earlier. It was the lowest level since mid-December, when rates averaged 4.81 percent.
The drop came as investors shifted money from risky European debt to safer U.S. securities. Bond yields fell as a result, and that lowered mortgage rates. Freddie Mac collects mortgage rates on Monday through Wednesday of each week from lenders around the country. Rates often fluctuate significantly, even within a given day.
The average fixed rate dropped to a record low of 4.71 percent late last year, pushed down by a campaign by the Federal Reserve to reduce borrowing costs for consumers. The program ended this spring, but rates have remained low, especially after fears that Greece’s government would default shook world markets.
The last time rates for 30-year fixed mortgages averaged less than 5 percent was the week of March 25, when they were 4.99 percent.
This week, the average rate on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage was 4.30 percent, down from 4.36 percent last week.
Rates on five-year, adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 3.95 percent, down from 3.97 percent a week earlier. Rates on one-year, adjustable-rate mortgages fell to 4.02 percent from 4.07 percent.
The rates do not include add-on fees known as points. One point is equal to 1 percent of the total loan amount.
The nationwide fee for loans in Freddie Mac’s survey averaged 0.7 of a point for 30-year loans 0.6 of a point for 15 year, 5-year and 1-year loans.
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Homeowners go legal for Loan Mods
Related Posts: Real Estate News
hiMore frustrated homeowners turned to federal court this week for help with their mortgages, saying Bank of America and Wells Fargo failed to provide promised payment modifications.
The two cases, filed Tuesday in Massachusetts, seek class-action status.
Three specific families are identified, one with a loan serviced by Bank of America and two by Wells Fargo – the nation’s two largest mortgage servicers. They were granted trial modifications, according to court documents, but haven’t received long-term modifications despite having submitted all required documents and made timely payments for more than three months.
The claims are simple, the two filings say: “When a large financial institution promises to modify an eligible loan to prevent foreclosure, homeowners who live up to their end of the bargain expect that promise to be kept.”
The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) is the main federal plan for reducing mortgage payments, part of a $75 billion plan to stem the national foreclosure crisis. The program calls for a three-month trial period, intended to give time for the homeowner to demonstrate an ability to keep up with the lower payments. However, there are growing reports of homeowners in trial plans ultimately being rejected for modifications despite making their trial payments or even being foreclosed on during the process.
The modification process has generated so many complaints that regulators and lawmakers are pressuring lenders to improve.
The Massachusetts cases, which are not open to borrowers in other states, say homeowners are “living in limbo” and spending scarce resources on payments that might ultimately not save their homes.
Earlier this month, 10 Ohio homeowners filed a civil case in federal court against Bank of America, also saying the bank broke promises to modify their payments.
The circumstances differ, in that the Ohio homeowners say they were promised modifications during a federally sponsored event last year. As of the filing date, they hadn’t received documents or had their payments reduced, meaning they are not as far along in the process as the Massachusetts families.
© 2010 The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.), Stella M. Hopkins. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
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$1.5 Billion on it’s way to help those in a struggle !
Related Posts: Credit & Finance
hiA plan to channel $1.5 billion to housing agencies in five states hit hardest by the real estate crash has Florida officials hopeful they can keep more people in their homes and out of foreclosure. President Obama announced the program Friday while in Nevada for a town hall meeting and campaign push for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The states included in the new program are Nevada, California, Arizona, Florida and Michigan, all of which consistently rank high on any measure of mortgage woe. But with more than 20 percent of its home loans seriously delinquent or in foreclosure, Florida tops the nation for defaults, according to a Mortgage Bankers Association report also released Friday. Obama administration officials called the $1.5 billion “modest” considering the depth of the nation’s housing crisis but said they hope it will lead states to come up with innovative solutions tailored to their own needs. Those solutions are expected to plug holes in the administration’s earlier Making Home Affordable Program, which has struggled to help unemployed homeowners who don’t have the income to qualify for a loan modification. It also attempts to tackle one of the thorniest issues to come out of the market meltdown – how to cope with upside-down loans where the homeowner owes more than what the property is worth. About 41 percent of South Florida borrowers, and 55 percent of Treasure Coast borrowers were underwater in December, according to analysts at Zillow.com. The $1.5 billion in taxpayer money, which is coming from the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program, can be used to help negotiate with lenders to write down mortgages on underwater loans.
The money will be doled out to states based on a formula that considers home price declines and unemployment. Officials couldn’t say Friday how many people it might help. There was some optimism Friday that the national housing market has begun to make a turn for the better. The Mortgage Bankers Association survey showed that despite continued record foreclosures, there was a small decrease in the number of loans 30-days late in the last quarter of 2009. That means fewer homes entered the foreclosure pipeline.
Instead, national 30-day delinquencies fell from 3.79 percent to 3.63 percent. In Florida, the 30-day delinquencies fell from 4 percent to 3.67 percent. The drop off may also be attributed, in part, to foreclosure rescue plans such as the Making Home Affordable Program. The program offers incentives to banks to reduce mortgage payments by cutting interest rates or principal amounts, but has been panned by critics for not reaching enough people.
A year into the program, 116,297 permanent loan modifications, including 14,598 in Florida, have been completed. But that’s only a fraction of the estimated 3.4 million loans nationwide that are 60 or more days delinquent.
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NAR intros a new free website !
Related Posts: Real Estate News, Real Estate Sales
hiThe National Association of Realtors® (NAR) launched HouseLogic, a new consumer website that covers all aspects of homeownership. According to NAR, HouseLogic was created to help homeowners make smart decisions and take responsible actions to maintain, protect and increase the value of their homes.
The free website helps homeowners plan and organize their home projects and provides timely articles and news; home improvement advice and how-to’s; and information about taxes, home finances and insurance.
Users who choose to register can save information, create to-do lists and set project reminders. The website can also be customized for individual homeowners depending on how handy or ambitious they are regarding home projects; how much money they want to spend or save; where they live; and their priorities, such as increasing the value of their home or improving their neighborhood.
HouseLogic also helps homeowners who want to get actively engaged in neighborhood and homeownership issues. The site provides users with the tools and know-how to affect change, like establishing a neighborhood watch program, building a community playground, or participating in city or county planning efforts.
So go and visit HouseLogic at www.houselogic.com.
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Justices adopt Florida foreclosure mediation rules
Related Posts: Credit & Finance, Government, Real Estate News
hiLenders will be required to pick up the tab for investigating and verifying ownership and then try mediation before foreclosing Florida home mortgages under new rules approved Thursday by the Florida Supreme Court.
The rules are designed to help Florida’s judicial system better cope with a flood of foreclosures. They follow a December administrative order by Chief Justice Peggy A. Quince telling local judges to adopt a uniform mediation program.
Florida has the nation’s fourth-highest foreclosure rate. Almost 400,000 cases were filed in Florida’s courts last year.
The rules and corresponding legal forms were proposed by a pair of Florida Bar panels.
The investigate-and-verify rule should help prevent those kinds of errors and give judges greater authority to sanction lenders who do make false allegations, the justices wrote.
The decision was unanimous except for a rule that will require prior approval of a judge before a foreclosure sale can be canceled. Justices Charles Canady and Ricky Polston dissented.
Last-minute cancelations have needlessly delayed other sales, again clogging the system.
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