The Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have announced another attempt to streamline procedures under their Home Ownership Made Affordable Program (HAMP.) The program has enrolled over 850,000 homeowners who are seriously delinquent in their mortgage payments in a trial modification period but has encountered significant problems in converting those trials into permanent loan modifications. Today the two departments released updated guidance for the mortgage servicers who initiate the modifications and monitor the trial periods. The guidance refines the documentation requirements and other procedures in order to expedite conversions of current trial modifications to permanent ones. Earlier reports on the progress of HAMP have indicated that many of the conversion…(read more)
The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development today released New Residential Home Sales survey data for December 2009. The survey is primarily based on a sample of houses selected from building permits. Since a “sale” is defined as a deposit taken or sales agreement signed, this can occur prior to a permit being issued. Changes in sales price data reflect changes in the distribution of houses by region, size, etc., as well as changes in the prices of houses with identical characteristics. It takes four months to establish a trend of new home purchases PREVIOUS REPORT: NOVEMBER SURVEY DATA Sales of new single family homes fell 11.3% to an annual pace of 355,000 units. This was much lower than consensus estimates of 440,000 annual sales and 45,000 less than…(read more)
The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development today released New Residential Home Sales survey data for December 2009. The survey is primarily based on a sample of houses selected from building permits. Since a “sale” is defined as a deposit taken or sales agreement signed, this can occur prior to a permit being issued. Changes in sales price data reflect changes in the distribution of houses by region, size, etc., as well as changes in the prices of houses with identical characteristics. It takes four months to establish a trend of new home purchases PREVIOUS REPORT: NOVEMBER SURVEY DATA Sales of new single family homes fell 11.3% to an annual pace of 355,000 units. This was much lower than consensus estimates of 440,000 annual sales and 45,000 less than…(read more)
The National Association of Realtors released December Existing Home Sales data this morning. When new homes are being built AND selling, money moves around the economy more efficiently. The size of the housing market combined with the broad influences it has over the economy make the real estate sector a reliable leading indicator of economic activity. Real estate is one of the first sectors to contract when a recession is looming and one of the first to show signs of recovery when economic activity begins to improve. BUT… When viewing housing data and its influence over the broader economy, Existing Home Sales are not as forward looking as other housing indicators such as housing starts and building permits. This is for a few reasons… Think about the materials that go into BUILDING a…(read more)
The National Association of Realtors released December Existing Home Sales data this morning. When new homes are being built AND selling, money moves around the economy more efficiently. The size of the housing market combined with the broad influences it has over the economy make the real estate sector a reliable leading indicator of economic activity. Real estate is one of the first sectors to contract when a recession is looming and one of the first to show signs of recovery when economic activity begins to improve. BUT… When viewing housing data and its influence over the broader economy, Existing Home Sales are not as forward looking as other housing indicators such as housing starts and building permits. This is for a few reasons… Think about the materials that go into BUILDING a…(read more)
CNBC Reports… Fannie, Freddie Cannot Exist in Current Form: Frank Rep. Barney Frank (D-Ma.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Friday that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be eliminated as they stand now. "This committee will be recommending abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form and coming up with a whole new system of housing finance, that's the approach rather than the piecemeal one," Frank said. Frank made his comments during the committee's hearings on executive compensation. A statement to CNBC.com from a senior congressional staff person said that Frank has said in the past that the current structure of Fannie and Freddie cannot exist and that in Frank's words, we cannot go back to the private entity with public responsibilities…(read more)
The Federal Reserve today reported on their weekly purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS). In the holiday shortened work week between January 14 and January 20, 2010, the Federal Reserve purchased a total of $16.359 billion agency MBS. In those four days the Federal Reserve sold $4.359 billion (supported the roll market) for a net total of $12 billion purchases. The goal of the Federal Reserve's agency MBS program is to provide support to mortgage and housing markets and to foster improved conditions in financial markets more generally. Only fixed-rate agency MBS securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae are eligible assets for the program. The program includes, but is not limited to, 30-year, 20-year and 15-year securities of these issuers. Since the…(read more)
From the National Association of Home Builders: Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes declined one point to 15 in January on continuing concerns about the poor job market and large number of foreclosed homes for sale . Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for more than 20 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as "good," "fair" or "poor." The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as "high to very high," "average" or "low to very low." Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over…(read more)
The Treasury Department reported Friday that 66,500 of the 902,620 homeowners who had started the trial modification period for its Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) had completed the three month trial and entered into a permanent modification by the end of December. Another 46,000 have satisfactorily completed the trial and have been given final documents but have not yet signed and returned them. Although only a 7.4% conversion rate, this is more than double the 32,400 signed permanent modifications reported at the end of November. The below chart from the REPORT provides a snapshot of HAMP progress since inception. The primary goal of the HAMP program is to reduce the monthly payment of the borrower to no more than 31 percent of monthly income. This has been accomplished for all participants…(read more)
The Treasury Department reported Friday that 66,500 of the 902,620 homeowners who had started the trial modification period for its Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) had completed the three month trial and entered into a permanent modification by the end of December. Another 46,000 have satisfactorily completed the trial and have been given final documents but have not yet signed and returned them. Although only a 7.4% conversion rate, this is more than double the 32,400 signed permanent modifications reported at the end of November. The below chart from the REPORT provides a snapshot of HAMP progress since inception. The primary goal of the HAMP program is to reduce the monthly payment of the borrower to no more than 31 percent of monthly income. This has been accomplished for all participants…(read more)
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