Boise Real Estate Blog

Obama’s New Refinance Program

In his State of the Union speech, Tuesday evening, President Obama announced a new mortgage refinancing program that would expand the government’s Home Affordable Refinance Plan (HARP).

While short on details, the plan would supposedly allow homeowners to refinance their mortgages at today’s low rates.

This is interesting because the vaunted new HARP 2.0 refinancing program essentially offers the same concept.

Critics have been quick to weigh in on the program, pointing out that it would only apply to borrowers whose loans are NOT guaranteed by FHA, Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac.

I am left wondering how this would work, given that FHA, Fannie, and Freddie hold the majority of all existing mortgage loans.

The program would be funded by additional “small upfront fees”, charged by the lenders.

Given that there’s no free lunch, those small upfront fees (just how small would they be?) would be passed on to borrowers, which would increase their cost of borrowing, thereby making it more difficult to qualify for refinancing.

But wait,  we could add those small upfront fees to the loan and end up with the borrower even deeper underwater!

Source: DSNews.com article

January 26th, 2012 Posted in Inside Real Estate |  Print This Post | No Comments »

Reform Coming For Loan Servicing

The loan servicing business has long needed some regulation and it appears to be on the horizon.

2012 will likely be the year that federal government requires standardization of mortgage loan servicing policies.

Look for more loan modifications and perhaps even some principal reductions as these policies are implemented.

But, don’t expect simple, easy-to-understand, logical, sensible solutions.

After all, these changes will be mandated by the federal government.

Source: DSNews.com article

January 25th, 2012 Posted in Inside Real Estate |  Print This Post | No Comments »

Boise In Top 10 U.S. Cities To Raise A Family

Boise has been named as one of the Top 10 U.S. Cities For Raising A Family, according to an article on DailyFinance.com.

The criteria for ranking included adult education levels, unemployment data, schools data, best children’s hospitals, violent crime rates, parks, playgrounds, and public facilities.

Now everyone knows what we locals already knew!

Source: AOL’s DailyFinance.com article

January 24th, 2012 Posted in About Boise, ID |  Print This Post | No Comments »

FHA To Tighten Lending Standards

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has announced that it will soon strengthen lending standards to reduce risk of default for FHA loans.

New regulations will include stricter requirements for lenders as a condition of being allowed to continue issuing FHA loans.

Also expected are new lending guidelines that will reduce the amount allowed for seller-paid buyer closing costs.

Source: DSNews.com article

January 23rd, 2012 Posted in Inside Real Estate |  Print This Post | No Comments »

B of A Struggles With Its Bad Loans

Bank of America has been forced to restructure and reduce its workforce as it deals with a mountain of delinquent mortgage loans.

The company slashed 7,000 jobs during the fourth quarter of 2011 and expects to cut more jobs this year.

As part of those cuts, B of A paid out $239 million in severance payments during the last three months of 2011.

To deal with its “legacy mortgage problems” (aka bad loans), the bank has created a separate division called the Legacy Asset Servicing Division with 48,500 employees who do nothing but deal with troubled mortgage loans.

B of A currently has about $4 BILLION worth of delinquent mortgage loans on its books.

This is one very troubled company.

Source: HousingWire.com article

January 22nd, 2012 Posted in Inside Real Estate |  Print This Post | No Comments »