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You’ll have more time to seek a mortgage modification under the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP. And maybe your lender will be more likely to write down principal.
HAMP’s expiration date has been extended one year, to the last day of 2013, the Treasury Department announced this afternoon. Treasury announced other changes, too:
• Treasury will
We need interpreters to explain what our politicians really mean, like the Kremlinologists used to do whenever a Soviet leader delivered a speech (with or without shoe-pounding).
In last night’s State of the Union speech, the president said:
(R)esponsible homeowners shouldn’t have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief.
Was Newt Gingrich “working as an influence peddler” on behalf of mortgage titan Freddie Mac, as Mitt Romney charges?
Yesterday, The Gingrich Group released its 2006 contract with Freddie Mac. Here is the contract’s complete description of The Gingrich Group’s “scope of services:”
“Consultant will provide consulting and related services as requested by Freddie Mac’s Director, Public
In February 2007, the subprime meltdown began. Two months before that, members of the Federal Open Market Committee were laughing about borrowers who were having trouble qualifying for mortgages.
Sandra Pianalto, president of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, told her fellow Fedsters during the Dec. 12, 2006, FOMC meeting that she had heard that a homebuilder
We got relatively good news from the December employment report, released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it had little immediate effect on the mortgage market. That’s even better news.
The economy created 200,000 more jobs than it destroyed in December, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent. In a robust economy, both
Both houses of Congress have approved an increase in the maximum size of a mortgage insured by the Federal Housing Administration, or FHA. The measure now goes to President Barack Obama’s desk.
Neither the Obama administration nor congressional Republicans think it’s a good idea to re-raise FHA loan limits. But increased limits are likely to be signed into
For underwater homeowners who want to refinance their mortgages, the details of HARP 2 are coming into focus.
HARP 2 is a liberalized revision of the Home Affordable Refinance Program. (See Bankrate’s HARP page.) HARP’s goal was to allow homeowners to refinance their loans, even if they owed more than their homes were currently worth. Millions
The bond-rating companies have waded into the scrum over the debt limit. Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s jumped off the bench and onto the field and are throwing punches. They’re not dispassionately reporting from the press box.
Please keep in mind, when you read and watch articles about the debt debate, that Moody’s and S&P aren’t
Mortgage rates fell this week after release of a dismal employment report. Read Polyana da Costa’s report.
In the Rate Trend Index, the majority predict that mortgage rates will remain relatively unchanged this week. Polyana agrees with the majority, and I think rates will rise. In the last few weeks, when we have disagreed, she has
Mortgage bond yields finally fell today, as they normally would do after the release of a horrific monthly employment report.
Yields on Freddie Mac mortgage bonds have fallen 9 basis points since yesterday. The yield on the 10-year Treasury has fallen even further. As I write, it has fallen 14 basis points, to 3.02 percent.
This means
