Mortgage Rates All Time Low – Delinquency Rates Remain High

September 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I am still amazed at these historically low-interest rates.  These rates are too good not to take advantage of them, especially if you intend to stay in your home for any length of time.  One thing is for certain, these rates won’t last forever…

FreddieMac updated the average 30year fixed rate mortgage rate for the US today.  The average rate nationwide is 3.55% for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage according to Freddie Mac.

 

Now for the ugly side of the real estate market…  Below is the Delinquency Rate on Single Family Residential Mortgages.  This is what I would call “hang time” – the delinquency rate is hanging up above 10% since October 2010.  This is not good…

I think the obvious explanations for this is the high unemployment rates combined with underwater homeowners just walking away from their mortgages…

To track the delinquency rate from the “housing bubble burst”, many will say it was 2005 or 2006 –  I personally believe the bubble burst began in 2004 starting with the condominium market.  Either way – here are the delinquency rates from the above chart since Jan 1, 2005.  Look at it skyrocket in 2009.

2005-01-01   1.43
2005-04-01   1.55
2005-07-01   1.58
2005-10-01   1.63
2006-01-01   1.59
2006-04-01   1.62
2006-07-01   1.76
2006-10-01   1.95
2007-01-01   2.03
2007-04-01   2.30
2007-07-01   2.77
2007-10-01   3.08
2008-01-01   3.68
2008-04-01   4.38
2008-07-01   5.24
2008-10-01   6.65
2009-01-01   7.82
2009-04-01   8.64
2009-07-01   9.65
2009-10-01  10.48
2010-01-01  11.19
2010-04-01  11.20
2010-07-01  10.83
2010-10-01  10.14
2011-01-01  10.30
2011-04-01  10.59
2011-07-01  10.23
2011-10-01   9.91
2012-01-01  10.18

Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

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Mortgage Rates Historically Low

July 13, 2012 By

Just waned to put this back out there, Mortgage Rates are historically low.  Below is the average 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage rate compared to the 10 year Treasury Note.  The rates are not directly tied to the 10 year treasury but trend closely to it.

With these EXTREMELY LOW RATES, this is a great time to refinance or purchase…

Below is Edina Realty Mortgage Rates as of 07/13/2012.  Click on link for more information.

Today’s mortgage rates

Products Interest Rate APR
15yr Fixed Conforming 2.875% 3.188%
30yr Fixed Conforming 3.500% 3.675%
30yr Fixed FHA 3.250% 4.329%
5yr ARM FHA 2.250% 3.061%

Rates as of 7/13/2012 9:15 AM Central

Important disclosures, assumptions
and APR View/print

Get more rates »

Rates provided by: Edina Realty Mortgage

 

 

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Mortgage Rates and Operation Twist 2

June 22, 2012 By

Mortgage Rates remain low as we are experiencing record low rates partly due to Operation Twist, which I am record of criticizing.   Operation Twist has been extended and the Treasury will continue to buy long term bonds in order to keep rates artificially low.

The reason I don’t agree with this is not that I don’t want to see low mortgage rates, but rather it that is another form of artificially propping up the housing market.  I don’t believe the housing market needs this given the low inventory levels.  Jobs is more of a factor to housing than interest rates.  There will be a price we pay for Operation Twist down the road…

In the meantime, you might as well take advantage of these record low mortgage rates…   The chart below shows how the 30 year Mortgage Rates trend with the 10 Year Treasury even though they are not directly tied together.

 

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10 year treasury moves up and the 30 Year mortgage rates are up

October 13, 2011 By

This is pretty interesting because this is the other direction than what the experts thought Operation Twist would have on the market.  John Murphy pointed this out earlier on his post, then tonight I saw the St Louis Fed had updated their 30year mortgage average rates.

There are 2 things I find really interesting here but can’t explain.

1) the spread gets larger between the mortgage rates and the 10 year treasury the lower the treasury goes.

2) the 10 year treasury is going up, when most thought it would go down as a result of Operation Twist.

Note: the 30 year mortgage is updated as of 10/13/2011.    The 10 year treasury is updated as of 10/11/2011 at 2.18%

Just curious what Edina Realty Mortgage rates are today…  Looks like they are heading up.

Today’s Mortgage Rates

The current interest rates shown below are based on a purchase of a single-family, primary residence. For current refinance rates, contact us

as of 10/13/2011 09:15 AM Central

Product Interest Rate APR
Conforming1 and FHA1 Loans
30-Year Fixed 4.250% 4.434%
30-Year Fixed FHA 3.750% 4.550%
15-Year Fixed 3.375% 3.692%
7-Year ARM 3.000% 3.238%
5-Year ARM FHA 2.750% 2.908%
Jumbo1 Loans – Amounts that exceed conforming loan limits1
30-Year Fixed 4.500% 4.644%

 

 Equal Housing Lender

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The Nation's 11th Largest Mortgage lender is getting out of the business due to excessive regulations

October 13, 2011 By
Image representing MetLife as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

WOW!  This puts things into perspective a bit.  We all complain about the banks on their underwriting and that they are “not lending” now.  I knew they were pummeled with new regulations but had no idea to what extent.

The nation’s 11th largest mortgage servicer and 13th largest mortgage originator is getting out of the business due to excessive regulations according to HousingWire.  If a company can walk away from a$115.9billion servicing business it has to be bad…

MetLife Bank, a division of insurer MetLife Inc. (MET: 31.75 0.00%), is selling the bank’s mortgage business, citing uncertainty in the marketplace and a regulatory environment that requires excessive resources.

…In 2010, MetLife Home Loans ranked as the 11th largest mortgage servicer in the U.S., with its servicing business valued at $115.9 billion in the fourth quarter. The company also ranked 13th on the list of mortgage originators, holding 1.4% of the market and originating roughly $22 billion in mortgages last year.

Read Full Article

 

This not the direction we should be heading in to improve the housing market.  Having more banks lending would be helpful, not banks walking away from the business…

 

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Bill allows tax-free use of retirement funds for mortgage payments

October 5, 2011 By

Bill allows tax-free use of retirement funds for mortgage payments.

This is interesting, a bill that would allow a homeowner to tap into their retirement funds without the normal 10% penalty to cover their mortgage payments.  Interesting how it is only for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac  mortgages…

We will have to see if this bill becomes law.

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Mortgage Rates after the Twist, 09/26/2011 (day 5)

September 26, 2011 By
Mortgage

Image by Rev Dan Catt via Flickr

Still watching the 10 Year Treasury to see if there is any indication that rates might come down.  Today the Dow soared 272 points to close over 11,000.  This is great news by itself…  

The 10 Year Treasury rose 5.31% closing at 1.9040.  Keep in mind, even though it increased – it is still extremely low.  

The 10 Year Treasury is heading in the wrong direction to bring mortgage rates even lower, but as you can see the 10 year Treasury moves a lot more than the mortgage rates do.  The 10 Year treasury may yet drop and bring the mortgage rates down.  Time will tell.  As of today, the 10 year treasury is going up and the mortgage rates have not changed:  (oh bummer, we appear to be stuck at record low interest rates.)

Today’s Mortgage Rates

The current interest rates shown below are based on a purchase of a single-family, primary residence. For current refinance rates, contact us

as of 09/26/2011 09:58 AM Central

Product Interest Rate APR
Conforming1 and FHA1 Loans
30-Year Fixed 4.000% 4.181%
30-Year Fixed FHA 3.750% 4.550%
15-Year Fixed 3.125% 3.440%
7-Year ARM 2.750% 3.122%
5-Year ARM FHA 2.750% 2.908%
Jumbo1 Loans – Amounts that exceed conforming loan limits1
30-Year Fixed 4.250% 4.392%
 
 

 

I’ll keep tracking this for a while longer, or at least until I get bored with it!  

 

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10 Million more Mortgages set to default.

September 20, 2011 By

Wow, OMG, WTF, how many other 3 letter words could describe this?

I was reading this article from HousingWire and the numbers are staggering.  If these numbers prove to be accurate I will be eating my words that “I think we have weeded a lot of our shadow inventory by Short Sales“.  10 Million – that is only 200,000 more mortgage defaults per State!  (and I hardly think North and South Dakota will have that many mortgage defaults, that’s more than half their population!  Sorry Dakotan’s – couldn’t resist!)  Good thing we have managed to sell off that excess 10,000 in inventory over the last 3.5years, looks like we have another 60.5 years in inventory to sell off!

Thought I would pass this along.  I am a little skeptical of these figures because these are figures being used to “get Congress to act” and quite often that kind of stuff involves Hockey Stick charts and such.  I do know there is a big number in shadow inventory.  I have been reading numbers more in line with 1.5million to 2million in Shadow Inventory and no one seems to really pin-point a number just taking estimates based on late payments.  But 10 million, that is a BIG number!

Any opinions on this?  Do you believe these numbers are for real?  1 in 5 outstanding home loans?  That tells me that the unemployment and under-employment are far bigger problems than we are being told… 

Roughly 10.4 million mortgages, or one in five outstanding home loans in the U.S., will likely default if Congress refuses to implement new policy changes to prevent and sell more foreclosures, according to analyst Laurie Goodman fromAmherst Securities Group….

…”Many analysts looking at the housing problem mistakenly assume it is limited to loans that are currently non-performing (or 60-plus days past due). Such borrowers have a high probability of eventually losing their homes. However, the problem also includes loans with a compromised pay history; these are re-defaulting at a rapid rate,” Goodman told a Senate subcommittee Tuesday.

Read Full Article

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Federal Housing Financing Agency (FHFA) Sues Banks over Mortgage Backed Securities

September 2, 2011 By
Seal of the United States Federal Housing Fina...

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It is news like this that makes it near impossible to predict the market correction.  Depending on what happens here, it could either mean the mortgage business gets cleaned up or that it will shut all mortgage lending down – thus sending us into further housing slump…  Or it could just be a blip on the radar and not have any real impact.

We just spent Billions on bailing these banks now, now our Government is suing them?  Will we then need to bail these banks out after the lawsuit??  I don’t get it…

We are in uncharted waters here and I am not sure how this will play out…  I’ve got a gut feeling this is not going to help anyone out.  If we are not careful through this mess, we are heading in the direction where the only way you can get a mortgage is if the Government grants you one. (technically you give the mortgage lien on the property and receive the money or the note…)

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is ready to file suit against the nation’s largest banks, accusing the financial institutions of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage backed-securities sold in the run-up to the 2008 financial meltdown, The New York Times reported Thursday.

According to the article, the FHFA lawsuits will target Bank of America (BAC: 7.33 -7.33%), JPMorgan Chase (JPM: 34.92 -3.80%), Goldman Sachs (GS: 106.69 -4.88%) andDeutsche Bank (DB: 37.00 -4.15%) among other large MBS players.

Read Full Article from HousingWire

UPDATE:

The FHFA alleges these institutions, their executives and some lead underwriters violated federal securities laws, violated common law, failed to conduct proper due diligence and provided allegedly false information when selling these products.

What the FHFA seeks in recovery will not equal what the GSEs paid for the MBS sold. However, in each suit, the FHFA disclosed how much Fannie and Freddie bought from each particular bank and subsidiary in the case of BofA.

  • JPMorgan Chase: $33 billion
  • RBS: $30.4 billion
  • Countrywide: $26.6 billion
  • Merrill Lynch: $24.8 billion
  • Deutsche Bank: $14.2 billion
  • Credit Suisse: $14.1 billion
  • Goldman: $11.1 billion
  • Morgan Stanley: $10.5 billion
  • HSBC: $6.2 billion
  • Bank of America: $6 billion
  • BarCap: $4.9 billion
  • Citi: $3.5 billion
  • Nomura: $2 billion
  • Société Générale: $1.3 billion
  • First Horizon: $883 million
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Fed Up: A Texas Bank is Calling it Quits…

August 10, 2011 By

If this doesn’t make a statement about the regulations these banks are under, I don’t know what does…

From the  Wall Street Journal:

Main Street Bank lends most of its money to small businesses and is earning decent profits. But the Kingwood, Texas, bank is about to get out of the banking business.

In an extreme example of the frustration felt by many bankers as regulators toughen their oversight of the nation’s financial institutions, Main Street’s chairman, Thomas Depping, is expected to announce Wednesday that the 27-year-old bank will surrender its banking charter and sell its four branches to a nearby bank.

Mr. Depping plans to set up a new lender that will operate beyond the reach of banking regulators—and the deposit-insurance safety net. Backed by the private investment firm of Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, the company won’t be able to call itself a bank, but it will be able to do business the way Mr. Depping wants.

“The regulatory environment makes it very difficult to do what we do,” says Mr. Depping, who last summer saw his bank hit with an enforcement order from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.  READ MORE…

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The views expressed on this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of my Broker.