Posted To: MND NewsWire

Bankers responding to the January 2010 Federal Reserve Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices indicated that residential loan standards are still contracting. The report also states that consumer demand for mortgage loans continues to decline. The survey, released on Monday, addresses changes in loan supply and demand over the last three months. It also included three sets of special questions about delinquency rates of loans made to large and middle market firms, changes in bank policies about commercial real estate (CRE) loans over the past year, and a third set of questions about the banks' outlook over the coming year for the credit quality of a number of categories of loans. 55 domestic banks and 23 U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks responded to the…(read more)

Facing foreclosure and wondering what to do in order to combat this humiliating issue? The past two years have been extremely challenging ones in terms of finance for many of us out there, resulting in many of us not being able to service our mortgage payments and resulting in facing foreclosure issues. One may wonder if there are ways to stop foreclosure although you have tried every other method possible to delay or eliminate the danger of this issue.

You should never put off what you can do today until tomorrow. I’m sure you’ve heard advice from many people. Some of this advice may have been not to buy a home unless you’re going to stay in it for more than three years. On the surface this sounds like good advice. There are things to consider that will make this advice not that good.

For those who have owns to pay for and have been retrenched or sacked recently in view with the recent global recession, life may seem extremely difficult at the moment, financially at least. Nobody wants to be left on the streets with nowhere to go when you lose your home through foreclosure. Many are facing this dreaded situation as they are unable to service their mortgage payments, and creditors move in to seize their homes when this happens. When this happens, panic not. There are plenty of ways for you to buy time and avoid the negative impacts of foreclosure.

Posted To: MBS Commentary

If today's relative lack of economic data and inspiration toward directional movements set the stage for low volume and low volatility, tomorrow is perhaps no better. Apart from ongoing auto sales reports, the calendar is more weighted toward headlines than scheduled data with the lone pending home sales report left to battle fed-speak from both Volker and Geithner at 10am. Apart from that, there's not much that promises to inspire the markets to wild movements ahead of that which always reserves the right to be more wild: Friday NFP. Today, 4.5's ended down a mere tick to 100-31 whereas the 10yr note was off 17 ticks pushing the yield up to 3.66. Perhaps if I overtly call attention to the cliche of "more buyers than sellers" it lessens the glibness of it all as indeed…(read more)

I work with a real estate agent to get the home that will make you happy. When looking for a home you will not want to commit to a certain type of house too early in this process. The best advice that anyone can give you is to look around at houses that are above and below your price range. This is the only way to get a good sampling of what is out there. The perfect home you had in mind for yourself may change to something else once you see what is available.

If you have plans of purchasing a property, now is the best time. There are a lot of reasons why now is a good time to purchase a house. First, there are a lot of sellers. This means that you have plenty of options. Additionally, the values of the properties are cheaper too…

On December 16, 2009 Chase quietly issued a press release. In it the company announced that it was going to open an additional 24 Home Ownership Centers by the end of April of 2010. Chase already has 27 of these centers. Why would Chase suddenly double the number of Home Ownership Centers?

Posted To: MBS Commentary

Heading into the close, the story of the day so far has been low volume, low volatility, low directionality, low variability, and low excitement. It's been quite a white since 7 consecutive hours have gone by in which the 10yr yield stayed within a 2bp range. But you'll be able to see that in the chart below, as well as the constant impact of the stock lever (blue and yellow lines moving in the same direction most of the time). MBS were slightly more variable than tsy's, but still a much more narrow range, capped by 100-29 after MBS fell to that level shortly after the open We'll take a look at the Tuesday ahead in about an hour in MBS CLOSE. But between now and then, it seems quite safe to assume an appalling lack of anything interesting happening in the last hour of trade…(read more)

It’s no secret that the real estate market across the country has been anything but stellar in the last 1-2 years. While it is a good time to be buying, there are significant challenges you may be facing if your intention is to sell your home. As someone who works closely with the real estate market, I would like to offer some tips that may help you successfully get your home sold, helping you both move forward and also perhaps avoid more unsavory outcomes like foreclosure.