Articles Categorized: News

Upcoming E-Waste and Document Shredding Event in Pasadena

Upcoming E-Waste-Document Shredding Event E-waste/Document Shredding event is scheduled for May 30, 2015 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. – Rose Bowl Stadium – Parking Lot I E-waste items include computers, keyboards, printers, monitors, laptops, docking stations, scanners, shredders, fax machines, computer mice, telephones, televisions, flat screens, VCRs, DVD players, PDAs, cassette players, tape drives, stereos… Read more

Fannie Mae to offer lenders access to proprietary home valuation database

From the L.A. Times.com — Starting Jan. 26, Fannie Mae plans to offer mortgage lenders access to proprietary home valuation databases that they can use to assess the accuracy of and risks posed by the reports submitted by appraisers. The Fannie data will flag possible errors in the appraiser’s work before the lender commits to… Read more

It’s Time to Think About Refinancing Your Mortgage

From the NYTimes.com — The bond market is a complicated thing, and it is understandable if most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. But even for Americans who don’t want to spend any mental energy on yield curves, convexity and term premia, there is one simple thing to know about the… Read more

FHA Mortgage Insurance Premiums Cut

From Businessweek.com — The annual fees the Federal Housing Administration charges to guarantee mortgages will be cut by 0.5 percentage point, to 0.85 percent of the loan balance, Julian Castro, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said today during a conference call with reporters. Under the new premium structure, FHA estimates that 2… Read more

Five Key Take-Aways on America’s Housing Market

Fannie Mae’s chief economist, Douglas G. Duncan met with the L.A. Times editors and reporters to share his views on where the housing market is headed. Here are five key takeaways: Housing isn’t really going gangbusters. Despite those eye-popping price jumps, housing is not in a bubble or even a boom. Real estate is also… Read more

Existing Homes Sales Post First 2014 Increase

From Mortgage News Daily.  There were stirrings of a spring market in April as both existing home sales and the inventory of available homes increased.  The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said that home price growth also slowed, an encouraging sign of continued affordability.

Mortgage Rates Hit Six-Month Low; Not Likely to Rebound

From the Wall Street Journal.  Mortgage-interest rates have fallen to their lowest level in six months, and may struggle to surpass last fall’s peak by the end of the year.  Such a development could be a boon for the housing market slowed by a rise interest-rates that began a year ago. Interest rates on 30-year… Read more

Cash-Out Refinances Up as Home Equity Rises

According to the LA Times,  equity holdings in homes are surging again, cash-out refinancings are coming back into vogue — this time under much tighter controls by lenders and used for saner purposes by borrowers than they were last decade. Giant mortgage lender Quicken Loans estimates that about one-quarter of new refinancings are cash-outs. Federally… Read more