Fannie Mae recently announced that people purchasing a Fannie Mae-owned HomePath® property will receive up to 3.5 percent of the final sales price to be used toward closing cost assistance or their choice of appliances. The offer is available to any owner-occupant who closes on the purchase of a property listed on HomePath.com before May 1.

Properties eligible for this incentive are listed on HomePath.com and most listings include detailed property descriptions; photographs; community and school information; and more. In addition, many Fannie Mae-owned properties are eligible for special HomePath Mortgage and HomePath Renovation Mortgage financing, which offers home buyers an opportunity to purchase with as little as 3 percent down.

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Fannie Mae recently announced that people purchasing a Fannie Mae-owned HomePath® property will receive up to 3.5 percent of the final sales price to be used toward closing cost assistance or their choice of appliances. The offer is available to any owner-occupant who closes on the purchase of a property listed on HomePath.com before May 1.

Properties eligible for this incentive are listed on HomePath.com and most listings include detailed property descriptions; photographs; community and school information; and more. In addition, many Fannie Mae-owned properties are eligible for special HomePath Mortgage and HomePath Renovation Mortgage financing, which offers home buyers an opportunity to purchase with as little as 3 percent down.

CNN Money - On Friday, the Federal Housing Administration announced that it will assist borrowers before they become delinquent.

To read the full story, please click here.

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.

Read full story at CNBC click link below:

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Beginning mid-December 2009, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage will implement the RESPA (Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act) Reform requirements for all new applications with a property identified. The new requirements intend to help borrowers avoid surprises at closing by placing tolerance levels on all charges for services associated with obtaining the mortgage where the vendor is not borrower-selected.

While RESPA Reform has many process impacts for lenders, settlement agents and attorneys, the transaction experience should remain relatively unchanged for the consumer, REALTOR® and Builder. To help ensure a smooth experience for all parties involved, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage wants to make sure you are aware of these changes and how they impact home financing transactions. Please click here and take a few minutes to read our RESPA Reform Information Guide. It will provide you with:

• The intent of RESPA Reform
• Impacts of three of the new RESPA Reform requirements
• Previews of the new Good Faith Estimate and HUD-1 Settlement Statement
• Frequently asked questions

We hope you find this information helpful. Please contact your local Wells Fargo Home Mortgage consultant for more information and/or to answer your questions.

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage

From Nicole Adams of Construction Management Degree:

It’s the new focus of attention among homeowners struggling to keep up with falling rates, rising mortgages and homes that are underwater – while the complete details about the $75 million bailout sanctioned by the Obama government are not available as of now, there seems to be a mixture of hope tinged with doubt in the air. The question that most people are asking is – will the bailout help me?

The answer depends on a variety of factors –

It will be to your advantage if you’ve been up to date in your payments so far.
You do qualify if your loan was sanctioned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
You could get your monthly payments reduced to 31 percent of your household income.
You qualify for a refinance at a low interest rate for up to 105 percent of your home’s present value.
You are eligible for help under the bailout plan only if you are the homeowner and if the home in question is your primary residence. You do not qualify if you bought the home for investment or resale purposes.
You do not qualify if the home is a vacation residence.
The new low interest rates are fixed only for the first five years, after which they will gradually be raised to the current levels.
You could get your principal decreased if you are up to date in your monthly payments for the first five years while the interest is low.
There are no prepayment penalties, so you could pay more than the minimum amount each month and get through your mortgage in a shorter period of time, thus reducing the total amount you’re supposed to pay. The more you pay each month, the less you owe on interest on the remaining principal amount.
You do not qualify if you took out the initial mortgage knowing that you could not hope to make the subsequent payments. This is a tricky codicil – no one actually takes out a loan deliberately knowing that they cannot hope to pay it back. But if you’ve never made a single payment or if you’ve defaulted on a large number of them, you’re bound to come under scrutiny and be denied the benefits of the bailout, even though circumstances and bad luck made it impossible for you to keep up with the payments.
So where is the $75 million going? Well, a large part of it is making its way into the pockets of your lenders or loan servicers – for each loan modification (decrease in interest) a lender makes, he or she gets $1000. They also get $1000 every three years if a borrower is regular in his payments for the same period. And they also get $500 for every borrower brought under the umbrella of this plan just before he/she starts missing their payments.

While the details are sketchy at present, we will know more when March 4 arrives and the program unfolds. Till then, it’s best to keep up with your payments and keep your fingers crossed hoping that you’ll qualify.

As of November 2009, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac implemented more than 405,000 trial and permanent loan modifications under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), according to a third quarter Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) report.  The agency also refinanced 4 million loans. The report details the actions each enterprise has taken to prevent foreclosures and help homeowners remain in their homes.

According to the report, as of Nov. 30:

• Fannie and Freddie had implemented 405,700 HAMP active trial and permanent loan modifications.
• Foreclosure starts on loans owned or guaranteed by the GSEs declined 15 percent in the third quarter.
• Loan modifications, excluding HAMP trial loan modifications, increased 14 percent compared
  with the second quarter.
• Nearly half of loan modifications completed in the third quarter, excluding HAMP trial modifications, resulted in borrowers’ payments decreasing by more than 20 percent.
• Short sales and deeds in lieu increased by 39 percent during the third quarter.
• Loans 60 or more days delinquent increased nearly 20 percent during the third quarter to 1.6 million.

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During his State of the State address, Governor Schwarzenegger today announced his 2010 proposals for California.  Included in the proposals is a recommendation to set aside $200 million for a new round of $10,000 state tax credits for first-time home buyers.  The proposal expands upon the initial $10,000 state tax credit by including both new and existing homes.  Last year’s tax credit applied only to new homes.

The tax credit could be combined with the recently extended and expanded federal tax credit for home buyers.

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Wall Street Journal – Federal rules that take effect Friday, Jan. 1, mandate a standard, three-page Good Faith Estimate that urges consumers to shop around for the best loan and helps them compare lenders’ offerings. The rules are an update of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, a 1974 law known as RESPA.

MAKING SENSE OF THE STORY FOR CONSUMERS

Although Good Faith Estimates have been in use for many years, there never has been a standard form required of all lenders. Under the new rules, lenders and mortgage brokers are required to give consumers the standard estimate forms within three days of receiving a loan application.

The Good Faith Estimate form requires lenders to combine all of the bank’s fees into one “origination charge,” enabling consumers to compare one lender’s fees with another’s. Lenders are prohibited from increasing the origination fee from the estimate. Some additional charges, including title services and recording charges, can increase by as much as a combined 10 percent. Estimates for other charges, such as homeowner’s insurance and other services provided by third parties selected by the borrower, aren’t subject to such limits.

A finance professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School recommends that borrowers focus on two items as they shop: the interest rate and the “adjusted origination charge,” which includes any points paid to lower the rate.

Another change includes the HUD-1 form used by settlement firms in closings. The new HUD-1 includes a comparison of the estimated and final costs, as well as a summary of the loan terms.

To read the full story, please click here.

National bank and thrift servicers implemented more than 680,000 home loan modifications and payment plans in the third quarter of 2009, a 69 percent increase compared with the second quarter, according to a report released by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS).

The percentage of current and performing mortgages declined for the sixth consecutive quarter to 87 percent of the servicing portfolio, serious delinquencies rose to 6.2 percent, and foreclosures in process surpassed 1 million mortgages, according to the report.  Serious delinquencies at the end of the third quarter increased to 3.6 percent of prime mortgages, an increase of 20 percent from the previous quarter and more than double a year ago.

Other findings from the report included:

• More than half of all modified loans re-defaulted within six months of modification, with re-default defined as 60 or more days delinquent or in foreclosure.
• Servicers implemented nearly 274,000 trial plans under the administration’s “Home Affordable Modification Program” (HAMP) during the third quarter. 
• Servicers implemented nearly twice as many home retention actions as new foreclosures.
• More than 80 percent of the loan modifications in the third quarter reduced monthly principal and interest payments.

The complete report can be downloaded from the OCC and OTS Web sites, www.occ.gov and www.ots.gov.

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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will suspend foreclosure evictions from December 19, 2009 through January 3, 2010. To help struggling families over the holidays, both owner-occupants and tenants living in properties foreclosed upon by Fannie Mae will not be evicted. Freddie Mac’s suspension of evictions will be limited to properties up to four units.

In a similar move, Citigroup Inc. will suspend foreclosure sales and evictions for 30 days through January 17, 2010 for loans it owns. Citigroup’s foreclosure moratorium, however, does not extend to loans it services on behalf of other investors. Given these developments, other lenders may follow suit, so check with the lender if appropriate.

- California Association of Realtors