The FHA this week announced higher “floor” and “ceiling” loan limits for forward and reverse mortgages for 2017, pushing loan limits upward in certain metropolitan statistical areas by as much as $162,500. The loan-limit changes will take effect on Jan. 1, spurred by rising median home prices. The Case-Shiller Home Price Index for September reported that home prices increased 5.5 percent year-over-year, driven by a tight supply of homes for sale, especially in the West. Each year, FHA recalculates its loan limits based on 115 percent of the median house price in the area. For counties located in MSAs, the loan limit is calculated based on the highest-cost county within the MSA. Under the 2017 changes, FHA will raise its nationwide “floor,” or low-cost area mortgage limits, for one-unit properties to $275,665 from $271,050, a difference of $4,615. In high-cost areas, the loan-limit ceiling for a ... [ 2 charts ]
The Federal Housing Finance Agency raised the maximum conforming loan limit for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages in 2017 for the first time in a decade, but the impact on loan originations is questionable. Meanwhile, the FHA has not yet announced its 2017 loan limits. The baseline loan limit will go up for the first time since 2006, rising from $417,000 to $424,100. And the maximum high-cost loan limit for one-unit properties is climbing to $636,150, an increase of $10,650. The FHFA said that loan limits for the two government-sponsored enterprises will increase in all but 87 counties. An Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data indicates...
The incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump is likely a couple of months away from formal confirmation by the U.S. Senate of new cabinet officials. But at least one position has apparently been settled – that of Treasury secretary – and other names have been circulated, including that of a possible head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. At the same time, Trump has begun fleshing out the personnel that will serve on various “landing teams,” which help ease the transitions at various federal agencies. On the cabinet level, the new president has decided...
Based on current trading values, Fannie common now has a market capitalization rate (share price multiplied by number of shares) of $28.01 billion. Freddie common is valued at $15.14 billion.
All three buildings hit the market in October 2015. According to records from the District of Columbia’s Office of Tax and Revenue, the parcels were once valued at almost $200 million.
Mortgage lenders saw a significant jump in refinance activity during the third quarter of 2016, although purchase-mortgage lending continued to account for over half of new originations, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. Refi production increased by 20.4 percent from the second to the third quarter, according to revised estimates by Inside Mortgage Finance. A total of $277.0 billion of refi loans were originated during the period, the strongest quarterly volume since the second quarter of 2013, when an estimated $351.0 billion of refinance mortgages were originated. One change in the market over the past three years has been...[Includes three data tables]
Steven Mnuchin, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be the next Treasury secretary, startled financial markets this week by indicating he would act quickly to bring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of government conservatorship. “We’ve got to get Fannie and Freddie out of government ownership,” Mnuchin said during an interview with Fox News. “It makes no sense that these [two] are owned by the government and have been controlled by the government for as long as they have. In many cases, this displaces private lending in the mortgage markets, and we need these entities to be safe.” Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive who bought the failed IndyMac Bank and resurrected it as OneWest, continued...
In case you haven’t noticed: the national debt is ready to crack the $20 trillion mark – almost twice the dollar volume of outstanding residential debt in the United States.
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