Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!!!

A couple of pretty important announcements/notices came out in the past week and a half that I thought worth mentioning (a couple of good ones and another – not so much):

Rates (Lions): Barry Habib, probably the most well-known prognosticators of mortgage interest rates, came out this week and boldly predicted that mortgage rates would actually fall in 2015.  The culprit?  He believes oil is driving the latest trend.  He is dead on right now as we are at the lowest level for fixed rates that we’ve seen other than the window of time from late 2012 to early 2013.

http://thenationalrealestatepost.com/barry-habib-predicts-big-rate-drop-for-2015/

FHA (Tigers):  In a move designed to bring more first-time homebuyers into the housing market, President Barack Obama said Wednesday the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the government insurer of home loans, will lower its annual insurance premiums from 1.35 percent to 0.85 percent.  He didn’t give a timeframe, but indicated that it would be sooner than later.  This would in effect drop someone’s payment on the MI portion, assuming a purchase price of $200,000, from $217 per month to $137 per month (regardless of the interest rate).  That is pretty substantial and quite the statement that FHA wants back in the mortgage game.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102318078

Fannie (and Bears):  On January 26th, Fannie Mae is rolling out its Collateral Underwriter (CU). The objective of CU is to assist lenders with assessing property eligibility and appraisal quality by providing risk scores, flags, hard stops and messages all in real time.  I use that term “assist” very loosely here.  There will be 21 different messages related to eligibility violations that can hold up a lender from being able to proceed with an appraisal if not properly addressed.  Comparables will be analyzed more thoroughly and in a more systematic way, requiring appraisers to be much more thorough with their analysis.  To prevent delays, it will be important to you and your clients that you are working with a great lender (I know one if you need a referral J) during this period of change with the way appraisals are going to be handled.  Found a great blog on the topic:

http://www.mortgageorb.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.16311

Make it a great week!