The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) introduced rate discounts for first-time home buyers using Fannie Mae- or Freddie Mac-backed conventional mortgages, a much-welcomed relief to housing costs in today’s housing market. Economic uncertainty always affects the housing market. And when the housing market is facing challenges, it hits first-time home buyers hard. The FHFA rate… Continue Reading
There are four really important times of the year for everybody who is anybody in the financial, mortgage or related industries — they happen around the middle of April, July, October and January. These are the times when we get all sorts of quarterly reports in, and those numbers can tell us a lot about… Continue Reading
2013 saw a lot of changes to the U.S. mortgage industry, from Fannie Mae’s elimination of 97 percent loans and the appointment of a new head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to nation-wide changes to provide more leniency through FHA programs for troubled borrowers. The Ability-to-Repay Rule and Qualified Mortgage Rule made headlines and… Continue Reading
Mortgage news of the early bust years was filled with drama, doom and gloom, but at last, in 2013, the news is getting better. Delinquencies are down, rates are up and guidelines are getting tighter again as lenders and government agencies struggle to find a balance between customer safety and profitability. There was a lot… Continue Reading