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Weekly Mortgage Market Commentary: Monday, November 21st 2011

by Alex Stenback 11.21.2011

Last Week: Mortgages chugged sideways last week.  From Monday through Friday there was actually some modest improvement in raw pricing of mortgage bonds, but not enough to impact consumer facing rates, which remained virtually unchanged all week. Why the drama free week?  Moderately OK economic data points in the US (weekly jobless claims average slipped [...]

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HARP II: Fannie and Freddie Release Expanded HARP Refinance Rules

by Alex Stenback 11.17.2011

Late in the day Tuesday, Fannie and and Freddie released their bulletins outlining the specific changes to the HARP, or Home Affordable Refinance Program. [ If you are just picking this up now: HARP (now HARP II) is designed to help borrowers who may be underwater, or have little or no equity in their homes [...]

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HARP II: Three Things You Can Do Right Now to Prepare

by Alex Stenback 11.09.2011
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If you missed the news last week, the FHFA has announced major changes to the HARP, or “Home Affordable Refinance Program.” (Otherwise known as the program to help underwater homeowners refinance, which did not help as many as it should have.) The new program, which we’ve been calling HARP II (seen elsewhere as HARP 2.0) [...]

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8 Healthiest Housing Markets: Minneapolis-Saint Paul Metro Tops The List

by Alex Stenback 11.08.2011

Builder Magazine (A trade publication) is out with a report which is getting much tout in local real estate circles because it names Minneapolis- Saint Paul as THE healthiest housing market. [ The source article is of annoying the page-view pumping variety (list spread out over multiple slow to load pages) so we'll link instead [...]

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Fed Day and Mortgages: No Policy, Rate Changes. More Help for Mortgage Rates a Possibility.

by Alex Stenback 11.02.2011
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Today, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee wrapped a two day meeting with a policy statement, interest rate decision, and a press conference. As for policy and rates, the Fed maintained the status quo: “…the Committee decided today to continue its program to extend the average maturity of its holdings of securities [And] its existing [...]

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HARP II: Fannie, Freddie Announce Changes to HARP Program

by Alex Stenback 10.24.2011
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This post published on Monday October 24th 2011.  Since publication,and depending on the date you are reading this, more information, or even the complete HARP II rules may have been published.  Feel free to contact me if you have any questions on the current state of the HARP II refinancing program ——– The Federal Housing [...]

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Mixed Signals: Good and Bad Signs for Twin Cities Real Estate Market in September 2011

by Alex Stenback 10.13.2011
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Let’s check in with the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors, who just published the September 2011 numbers.  Press release here: “Without any government stimulus, the Twin Cities housing market continued to take small yet noticeable strides toward recovery in September. Sellers listed 5,562 new homes on the market, down 16.8 percent from last year. Buyers entered [...]

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De-Mystifying The Loan Approval Process (It is not as tough as you think)

by Alex Stenback 09.28.2011
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Mortgage Applications Are Rising, but… The Mortgage Bankers Association reports that mortgage purchase applications rose 2.6% pecent last week. While this is potentially good news for the ailing housing market, these numbers are not as high as they should be when we have record low interest rates and housing prices have been rolled back by [...]

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Why You Can Ignore The Case-Schiller Home Price Index

by Alex Stenback 09.27.2011

Standard and Poor’s Case-Schiller Home Price Index for July  is making headlines today, as it does every month.  Cutting to the Chase, locally, the results the Twin Cities were: – Prices rose slightly from June to July this year. – Year over year, the index showed about a 10% decline in prices. – Were are back at [...]

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