According to the latest issue of HSH.com’s Market Trends Newsletter, “The all-important 30-year fixed conforming average slipped to 5.07% [last week],” a 10-week low point:

[Last] week, the overall average for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages tracked by HSH.com’s FRMI sported a decline of six basis points (.06%), ending HSH.com’s survey week at 5.34%, the lowest such average since mid-December 2009. The FRMI includes conforming, jumbo and the GSE’s “high-limit” conforming products in its calculation. The average interest rate for the FRMI’s Hybrid 5/1 ARM counterpart lost a full tenth-percentage point (.10%) during the latest survey cycle, closing the survey week at 4.48%.

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A White House official has said that Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, will introduce legislation as early as this week designed to tackle what the New York Times refers to as “one of the most fundamental issues stemming from the near collapse of the financial system last year:” institutions deemed “too big to fail.”

The legislation would be an alteration to an existing White House strategy on how to deal with some of the nation’s largest financial firms: Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE2: The proposal which we wrote about late last month — that state housing finance agencies (HFAs) could receive some serious Federal financing — was confirmed yesterday by the White House.

A joint release from the Treasury Department, HUD, as well as the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), announced a “comprehensive plan to stabilize the U.S. housing market.” The goal is to provide “hundreds of thousands of mortgages” to low and middle income families: Read the rest of this entry »

In an attempt to garner greater Democratic support, the Obama Administration has proposed some significant changes to their pending financial legislation. What began as a “sweeping” financial reform is quickly turning into a more narrowly-focused bill.

In what the Wall Street Journal classified as a “softening” of the bill, the proposed changes could eliminate some of the reform’s more prominent, yet high-criticized features: Read the rest of this entry »

The government made a deal with taxpayers’ money. Washington agreed to lend large financial institutions billions of dollars in exchange for shares of their preferred stock. Not only were these institutions to pay back their loans in full, but they are under agreement to pay a dividend on the government’s shares. The TARP program was designed for the U.S. to turn a profit and repay taxpayers. Now that may not happen:

…Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers.  Last Friday, Frank introduced the “TARP for Main Street Act of 2009,” a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats.

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Here we go again. While we wanted to be the first to coin that phrase as it pertains to the recent push by two Congressmen for Fannie and Freddie to loosen their lending standards, we were beaten to the punch (it was one of Drudge Report’s top headlines today) — so we’ll have to settle for second place.

But settling for second won’t stop us from reiterating just how unbelievable we think it is that certain lawmakers have already begun to revert back to the actions and decisions that were among the basic causes of this housing crisis and the subsequent recession.

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In a letter to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Democratic lawmakers Barney Frank (D., M.A.) and Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) urged the government-sponsored agencies to loosen their lending standards to accomodate those buying condos:

In March, Fannie Mae said it would no longer guarantee mortgages on condos in buildings where fewer than 70% of the units have been sold, up from 51%. Fannie Mae also won’t purchase mortgages in buildings where 15% of owners are delinquent on condo association dues or where one owner has more than 10% of units, which the firm sees as signals that a building could run into financial trouble. Freddie Mac will implement similar policies next month.

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We wrote back in December about the ongoing debate over the future operating status of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As the debate continues amongst lawmakers, the concern has been raised that if the U.S. doesn’t relinquish its control of Fannie and Freddie, it could reshape the entire mortgage industry — and not for the better, according to some.

When the mortgage giants were entered into a conservatorship last September, the takeover gave the government the opportunity to pursue specific goals and legislation through the two: Read the rest of this entry »