Jumbo mortgage news and a sample prequal

A new report shows delinquencies are up in the jumbo mortgage sector. My gut tells me these are concentrated in the 500k to 1.5M range.

A post at the Wall Street Journal points out some of the challenges in the jumbo market.

Todays sample prequal: $400,000.00 refi, 745 FICO. 5.375%, 30 year fixed w/ 0 points.

Have any questions? Looking to apply for an FHA or jumbo mortgage in Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland, or Florida? Just email me or reach me on Twitter and I'll be in touch.

Todays Luxury Listings

With the the snow and ice we had to endure today, I thought it would be a good time to link to these properties, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal:

Going island shopping

News roundup and rate updates

Some major industry news today:

The economic stimulus plan passed, fortunately without the cramdown proposal attached.

The President has proposed using $250 billion to establish a "bad bank" to buy the under-performing assets from banks. Ironically this was the original intent of the TARP so many months ago.

Some loans approved today:
Loan #1: $525,000 refinance. 5.75%, 30 year fixed . One point origination fee. The credit score on this one was 685.
Loan #2: $380,000 purchase. 5% down payment, 680 credit score. The rate on this one will be 5.125%, with one point for origination.

Have any questions? Looking to apply for an FHA or jumbo mortgage in Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland, or Florida? Just email me or reach me on Twitter and I'll be in touch.

Mortgage rates,news and updates

Some accountablility may be on the way for the Federal governments bailout buffett. Neil M Barofsky has been assigned the task of finding out what TARP recipeints have been doing with their emergency funds.

Just in time, too, as it seems many TARP recipients actually reduced lending after recieving the funds.

And President Obama has a plan to make room under the TARP for borrowers

A late day improvement in pricing brought rates back down to 4.75% on a conventional 30 yr fixed, 5.5% for an FHA 30 yr fixed jumbo up to $625,500 and 6% for a 5 year ARM up to $1 million.

Have any questions? Looking to apply for an FHA or jumbo mortgage in Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland, or Florida? Just email me and I'll be in touch.

Jumbo Mortgage Predictions for 2009

Given the turmoil in the real estate business last year, I thought it would be helpful to give an outlook for what to expect in the overall mortgage market this year and what to expected in the luxury sector:

I see rates being driven by two primary factors: downward pressure on Treasury yields and the expansion of mortgage liquidity in the secondary market.To the extent that these forces coincide with each other, interest rates will remain at their present levels or lower. Consider:

Low Treasury yields
Government issues continue to be a safe haven for investors since equity values plummeted in 2008. Late last year, yields on the 10 year and 30 year Treasuries were near generational lows, and since the new year have remained in a close range. With disappointing 4th quarter reports coming in for major Dow components (and the broader market for that matter) and no evidence of recovery in leading economic indicators, the flight to quality can be expected to continue through the next two quarters.

Mortgage liquidity
The two major players in restoring liquidity to the credit markets will be the federal government and eventually private equity:

The purchase of mortgage backed securities by the federal government ($53 billion of a $500 billion commitment to date) to buy troubled assets has lead to a significant narrowing in the spreads so far this year, unleashing a flood of refinance applications over the past 3 weeks.

The return of private equity has already begun, and can be expected to continue as these securities remain available at steep discounts. I’ll reference moves like the acquisition of IndyMac by Michael Dell, George Soros, and others high profile investors to back up this prediction. And given the better than expected performance of the Bear assets manged by BlackRock, mortgage backed securities will look more attractive as investors lose their appetite for low yielding fixed income products and disappointing returns in stocks and commodities.

So what does this mean for the high end real estate market? If sustainable, the mini refi boom generated by the above actions should translate into a refi echo in the jumbo mortgage market by the 3rd quarter as more funds become available. In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter for day to day updates on mortgage rate movements and breaking industry news.



Have any questions? Looking to apply for an FHA or jumbo mortgage in Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland, or Florida? Just email me and I'll be in touch.

Just an intro

I'll provide a more detailed bio later today. For right now, lets get down to business.