Home Loan Wholesale

The number of home loan applications in the U.S. for home purchases fell to a 13 1/2-year low last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday, in a further sign of the slump in home buying since a federal tax credit concluded at the end of April.  There have been fears for months that the incentive was stealing future sales and would result in a new leg down for the housing market once the support ended. New-home sales sunk to a record in May while pending total sales tumbled 30% from April.

Home loan applications for new homes were down 43% from the Independence Day week last year, said the MBA. The bad news comes even as home mortgage rates sink to new record lows.  Those rate declines have been giving some lift to applications for home refinancing, which hit a 14-month high two weeks ago. But even the MBA refinance mortgage report fell 2.9% last week from a week earlier as its gauge for purchases dropped 3.1%. The share of applications for refinancing was flat at 78.7%.  Read the original Mortgage News

Who would have thought that home mortgage rates would continue to break record with declining rates across the board?  Of course this is great news for homeowners and perspective home buyers looking to leverage the lowest mortgage rates of the century.

Fannie Mae’s current-coupon thirty-year fixed-rate home loans narrowed 0.03 percentage point to about 0.65 percentage point more than 10-year Treasuries as of 9:33 a.m. in New York, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The gap, which has fallen from 0.82 percentage point on June 30th, touched a low of 0.59 percentage point on March 29th, two days before the Federal Reserve ended its buying of $1.25 trillion of home-loan debt.

Home loan rates may be rising off record lows and bond prepayments reports released July 7th show limited mortgage refinancing, suggesting there will be less supply to meet demand as borrowers move from loans in bonds on the Fed’s balance sheet.  JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst, Matthew Jozoff wrote in a July 9th report “refinance-driven supply is the fly in the ointment.”  

Yields on the Fannie Mae bonds have advanced to 3.73% from a record low of 3.63% reached July 6th, down from 4.67% on April 5th, Bloomberg data show. The gain has been slower than benchmark Treasuries, whose yields have begun rising as stocks rally, damping demand for the safest assets.

Freddie Mac reported that the average interest rate on a conforming thirty-year fixed-rate home loan fell to a record low 4.57% in the week ended July 8^th.  That was a decline from this year’s high of 5.21% in April.

According to Mortgage News Source, Wells Fargo is laying off nearly 4,000 employees from its’ Consumer Finance Division that was responsible for non-prime mortgage lending.  The company announced that they were ceasing to originate subprime mortgages in an effort to mitigate loan portfolio risks.  Mortgage News indicated that Wells Fargo “had been struggling with delinquencies and loan defaults from their own bad credit home mortgages.”  Acquiring the loan portfolios from the Wachovia merger may have pushed their subprime risks too far. 

Wells Fargo announced they were closing 638 Wells Fargo Financial offices, which increased its number of retail branches to 6,600 after the Wachovia merger. The bank also has 2,200 Wells Fargo Home Mortgage offices and will eliminate about 2,800 employees from its Wells Fargo Financial unit and will most likely slash another 1,000 jobs in the next year. Read the original news article, > Almost 4,000 Wells Fargo Mortgage Layoffs

Mortgage refinance rates have dropped almost two percentage points below their housing boom peak and they remain available at record lows.  Freddie Mac reported that mortgage rate average fell to the lowest point in 2010 4.72% plus 0.7 point for a fixed rate home loan on a thirty-year term.  Clearly this is a great time for a home refinance loan, if you can get approved.  Credit, Lack of Equity and Inability to Document Income are the 3 most common reasons that homeowners have not been able to refinance into these record low rates.  A few years ago if you had good credit, you could pretty much qualify for any mortgage, but things have changed dramatically.  Today even people who have 700+ credit scores are finding it difficult to qualify for a conventional or FHA mortgage and it is frustrating millions of borrowers who need to refinance.  To receive the best mortgage refinance rates, you need good credit scores and the ability to document your income.  Stated and no income verification loans are no longer viable options for home refinance opportunities.   You also need enough home equity to meet the refinance guidelines.  Many California borrowers had sufficient equity a few years ago, but the housing crisis has taken its toll on property values statewide.

The Mortgage Bankers Association released a report recently that outlined borrower problems in its latest report on home refinancing activity, which declined 14% last week after consecutive weeks of increased refinance loan volumes.  The low interest rates and homebuyer tax credit have clearly made a positive impact on the mortgage refinance market in 2010.  However, “despite the record low mortgage rates, many homeowners remain underwater on their home loans.  This means that their mortgage is greater than their property value.  According to MBA’s vice president, Michael Fratantoni, many distressed borrowers have been late on their mortgage payment which significantly damaged their credit and taking them out of contention for mortgage refinancing this year.

Since the pool of qualified borrowers looking to refinance is shrinking many lenders are offering aggressive mortgage specials.  Many reputable mortgage lenders are offering a no point refinance and some are going further with the no cost mortgage that enables borrowers to refinance without coming out of pocket for any lending expenses.  The no cost home loans also help borrowers avoid raising their mortgage balance in an effort to finance the lender fees and closing costs.  According to mortgage marketing executive, Bryan Dornan, “Again qualifying for no cost refinancing is difficult because you need good credit, sufficient income that can be documented and enough equity in your home to qualify for the loan refinance program.”  Dornan continued, “It’s not a motivation factor.  The borrowers who need home refinancing most simply do not qualify under today’s tighter lending guidelines.”

To put it into perspective, interest rates dropped last week, yet refinancing volumes fell.  In most cases, mortgage refinance rates follow the yields of longer-term Treasuries whether they rise or fall.  In recent months it’s been down, as the European debt crisis has led to banks dropping interest rates even further.  The vice president of HSH Associates Keith Gumbinger, “We have not seen mortgage rates lower than this in upwards of 50 years.” Gumbinger believes that the rates will begin trending higher once we get some good news regarding the economy.

Freddie Mac announced today that the current mortgage interest rates are the lowest they have been in 2010. The Wall Street Journal reported that home builder stocks rallied in early trading follow a reported spike in mortgage loan applications last week as homeowners take advantage of some of the lowest home mortgage rates since March. 

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index of home loan applications, which includes both purchase mortgage and refinance loans, rose 3.9% for the week ended May 7th. The four-week moving average of mortgage applications, which removes some of the volatility of weekly changes, was up 4.4%. Mortgage refinancing led the way; the MBA’s seasonally adjusted index of home refinance applications rose 14.8%. A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, including lending fees, averaged 4.96%, the lowest level since week ended March 12th. Refinance rates were still higher the 4.76% last year and the all-time low of 4.6%.  The demand for mortgage loans for buying new homes dropped following the expiration of the heavily publicized federal home buyer tax credits.

The average mortgage rate on a 30-year home loan with fixed rates climbed to 5.02% last week from 5%, MBA said.  The mortgage rate reached 4.61% at the end of March, the lowest since the group’s records began in 1990.  At the current thirty-year mortgage rate, monthly borrowing costs for each $100,000 of a home loan would be $538.04 which is about $12 less than a year ago when the rate was 5.22%.

A report later today may show sales of new homes rose 3% in December to a 366,000 annual rate, according to the median projection in a Bloomberg News survey.   Sales of existing U.S. homes plunged last month, reflecting the expected expiration of the government’s first-time buyer tax credit on November 30th.

The average rate on a 15-year fixed mortgage rose to 4.34% from 4.33 % a week earlier. The rate on a one-year adjustable mortgage increased to 6.84% last week.   The share of applicants seeking to refinance a loan dropped to 67.6% last week, the lowest level in almost three months, from 71.7% the prior week.

Mortgage lenders continue to see muted demand for financing.   “The residential mortgage and home equity line portfolios also continued their downward trend,” SunTrust Banks Inc. Chief Financial Officer Mark Chancy said on a conference call January 22nd. The Atlanta-based lender said it lost $248.1 million in the fourth quarter as loans soured in the Southeast real estate market.  The Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association’s loan survey, compiled every week, covers about half of all U.S. retail mortgage loan originations.

The home mortgage industry added 200 full-time employees to their payrolls in November, the first jump in industry employment since July. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that employment in the mortgage broker/ bankersector rose to 255,700, compared to 255,500 in October. The BLS data shows the increase is entirely due to more mortgage brokers having jobs. Employment at mortgage broker and banking firms was flat in November. Overall, the home loan industry experienced a 10% drop in its workforce over the past 12 months. Major mortgage lenders have relied on outsourcing and temporary workers to deal with fluctuating demand. Meanwhile, the nation’s unemployment rate held steady at 10% in December, but 85,000 workers were laid off, according to the new jobs report. This disappointed analysts who were looking for a sign that the job market had finally turned the corner.