FHFA Data Shows HARP Refinances Above 105% LTV Are Increasing; Oregon and All State Data Available in Excel.

FHFA PR is HERE. From the PR I have constructed an Excel workbook in my public Excel SkyDrive that shows refinance and HARP activity by state, with a detailed breakout of Oregon data.  

Direct link to the Excel file is HERE and it is embedded below. (Worksheet with detailed Oregon data displayed by default; data for all states and link to data source are included in other worksheets in the workbook).

Some Oregon Observations

1. The percent of HARP loans that went to borrowers at LTV 105% and above was 28% in March compared to 10% since the start of HARP in April of 2009.
2. In March there were 515 HARP refinances with LTV above 105%; that is nearly half of the 1,044 HARP refinances with LTV above 105% so far this year and more than 1/6th of ALL HARP refinances above 105% since the inception of the program in April 2009.
3. Total FHFA refinances in March were 8,133; there were 19,252 FHFA refinances so far this year

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Making Home Affordable Home Owner/HAMP Event Coming to Portland Dec 3rd, After Scheduled Start Date for New Fannie/Freddie Refinance Program.

From HAMP national website, found bilingual flyer for this Saturday Convention Center event HERE.  

Treasury, HUD, Neighborworks and HOPENOW logos are included on the flyer. 

First Oregon Session Where New Refinancing Guidelines May be In Effect for Fannie/Freddie Loans

Refinancing guidelines for the new HARP program for Fannie and Freddie loans are expected to be released Nov 15, with lenders expected to accept applications in December. This event is likely the FIRST where home owners can interact with lenders to discuss  eligibility for this new refinancing program. (FHFA website for new HARP program is HERE).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Updated: Major Revisions to Fannie/Freddie Mortgage Refinance Program Coming.

FHFA press release has now been posted HERE, includes Fact Sheet and Q and A. 
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In time for President's visit to Las Vegas changes that would expand refinancing options are expected according to WSJ story HERE and Bloomberg story HERE.  WSJ story says program aimed at loans owned by Fannie and Freddie AND 

• Open to those owing more than 125% of their home's value
• Appraisal and underwriting requirements to be reduced
• Loan fees will drop; waived for borrowers who reduce their loan term
• Borrowers must be current on previous six payments

Second WSJ piece HERE also answers some questions/answers about the planned program.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Termination of FHA Short Refinance Program Clears House, with Oregon's Schrader Joining Republicans.

The House passed a bill (HR 830) that would terminate the FHA short refinance program.  The vote was largely along party lines with some Democrats joining the Republican majority, including Oregon Rep Curt Schrader.  

The Administration says that they will veto the bill if it is passed by the Senate.

The CBO cost estimate for this bill HERE says that the program costs $13,000 per mortgage, that it would eliminate 13,000 possible refinances, and save $175 million from 2011-2021:

As of January 31, 2011, about 40 loans have been refinanced under the program. Based on data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, CBO estimates that the refinanced loans cost the government an average of $13,000 on a present- value basis. CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 830 would prevent the refinancing of about 13,000 mortgages under the program. In total, CBO estimates that enacting the bill would reduce direct spending by $175 million over the 2011-2021 period.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

First Take, FHA HOPE for Homeowners Loan Analysis.

The FHA HOPE for Homeowners program was the original FHA program that was designed to allow underwater borrowers to refinance into an affordable FHA loans, IF lenders agreed to principal reduction. (Program requirements from HUD's regulations can be found HERE).

As my earlier post indicated HUD has said that they have endorsed a TOTAL of 167 HOPE for Homeowner loans in FY 2010 and through November of 2010.  I have gone back into the relevant FHA databases and extracted data for 150 of those loans (data indentifying the remaining 17 loans is NOT in the earlier FHA databases).

I have prepared a table HERE showing the state location of these loans.

Two Initial Observations 

• Oregon had ZERO H4H loans,
• 10 states accounted for 70% of all H4H loans.

More observations to follow ...

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

FHA Short Refinance Program Continues to Under Perform.

Data for November shows applications for the FHA Short Refinance program funded with TARP money continue to under perform. In my earlier post (HERE) I indicated that there were a total of 35 applications for the FHA short refinance program through October. 

November saw 40 additional applications and the first actually endorsed loan, so in last 3 months the FHA short refinance total was 75 applications and one endorsement.  

The table below shows FY 2010 and latest 3 monthly counts for the FHA Short Refinance program and counts for FHA's earlier HOPE for Homeowners program:

	Applications		Endorsements
Period	H4H	Short Refinance	H4H	Short Refinance
FY 2010	340	14	107
Sep-10	29	14	11
Oct-10	66	21	22
Nov-10	88	40	27	1
3 Months	183	75	60	1

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Oregon FHA Purchase and Refi Summary, CY 2009 Through September.

The tables below provide a quick summary of FHA loan volume in Oregon for home purchases and refis for calendar year 2009 through September.

Notes:

• Loan counts do NOT include HECM loans.
• Refinance volume in September was the lowest of the year.
• Home purchase volume in September was the highest of the year.
• Avg loan amounts for CY YTD purchase loans was $206,311 and for refinance loans, $216,641.
  

	Purchase	Refi	Purchase+Refi
CY YTD Total	7,869	8,916	16,785
Jan	601	960	1,561
Feb	408	984	1,392
March	603	978	1,581
April	717	1,017	1,734
May	682	1,059	1,741
June	1,073	1,256	2,329
July	1,212	1,041	2,253
Aug	1,255	858	2,113
Sept	1,318	763	2,081

	Purchase	Refi	Purchase+Refi
CYTD Total	$ 1,623,459,605	$ 1,931,573,733	$ 3,555,033,338
Jan	$ 122,571,062	$ 205,787,971	$ 328,359,033
Feb	$ 81,883,096	$ 214,761,841	$ 296,644,937
March	$ 124,078,572	$ 213,302,066	$ 337,380,638
April	$ 145,355,732	$ 221,505,730	$ 366,861,462
May	$ 139,038,236	$ 235,991,059	$ 375,029,295
June	$ 223,479,771	$ 277,044,862	$ 500,524,633
July	$ 253,918,011	$ 220,796,588	$ 474,714,599
Aug	$ 261,377,878	$ 180,845,911	$ 442,223,789
Sept	$ 271,757,247	$ 161,537,705	$ 433,294,952

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

CORRECTION2: Written Statements from Morning House Hearing on Making Home Affordable Plan.

Correction2: The link to CORRECT document has now been posted; my apologies for confusion.

I have consolidated this mornings written statements on the Making Home Affordable Plan before the House Financial Services Subcommittee. Testimony is in a single PDF file HERE; I count 8 separate witnesses.

(As before, do NOT click on links to testimony on page 1 or 2, if you do so, you will be downloading testimony that is already part of the file).

Hearing is still in progress. After hearing is complete the archived video link on page 1 of the PDF file should work, but video is not usually posted until the following day.

I will have some comments in subsequent post after I review testimony and listen to portions of it.

Simple WSJ Graphic : Who Qualifies for Refi or Loan Modification.

Sometimes a pic IS worth a thousand words, check out the WSJ Graphic HERE.

Before HASP Program Announcement Tomorrow, a Basic Eligibility Screening Tool.

The details of the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Program (HASP) details are scheduled for release tomorrow.

I am hopeful (for no good reason) that there will be job aids, including some on line or Excel screening tools, that housing counselors can use to screen homeowners to see if they meet basic eligibility standards for consideration under either the HASP refinance or loan modification programs.

I put together an Excel based screening tool that attempts to do that, using the information available prior to the formal announcement tomorrow. It requires 6 simple data entries, and then returns results indicating whether borrower MAY meet some basis eligibility requirements. This is ONLY for illustration purposes and should NOT be used to make any kind of determination about eligibility.

It's HERE, and depending on what happens tomorrow, I may either refine this or drop it.

(TIP: The estimator is in Excel 2007 file format. Some users report when they save Excel 2007 files they end up with a compressed .zip file extension. My suggestion is to download and save the file to your pc. Find the downloaded file, and if necessary, change the .zip extension to Excel 2007 extension (.xlsx), and THEN open the file with Excel).

Quick CY 2008 FHA Oregon Snapshot: 14,450+ FHA Home Purchase and Conventional to FHA Refinance Loans

This one page draft HERE includes two graphs showing a monthly CY 2008 summary of Oregon FHA home purchase and Conventional to FHA refinance loans.

I will likely do a update to my FHA snapshot reports in a week or so , but in interim this draft provides a quick summary for these two loan types.

Updated Oregon Mortgage Bond Subprime ARM Refinance Savings Estimator Posted: Annual Savings Now $5,870 Per Family.

I have updated a previously posted estimate of the savings that a family would realize if Oregon begins a program to allow families with subprime ARM loans to refinance into an Oregon bond loan, as authorized by the summer 2008 federal housing legislation.

The update uses the current Oregon bond rate (4.5%), the November 2008 average subprime ARM rate for Oregon from Federal Reserve data (8.25%), and the November 2008 Oregon conventional to FHA average refinance loan rate (6.2%).

Using those rates, an Oregon family refinancing a $200,000 loan with an Oregon bond loan would save $5,870 annually compared to the average subprime ARM annual principal and interest payment. The same subprime refinancing using an FHA loan instead of the Oregon bond loan would save the family $3,331 a year.

Extrapolated to 1,000 families over a 30 year period, the savings would be $176.1 Million comparing the average ARM rate with the Oregon bond rate and $99.9 Million comparing the average ARM rate with the average FHA refinancing rate.

[In November 2008 in Oregon, 738 conventional mortgage loans were refinanced into FHA loans, these new lower rate loans totalled $159 million].

The PDF HERE shows these calculations AND includes alternative savings with the Oregon bond and FHA rates increased by 1/2% and 1%. comparing the average FHA refinance rate with the Oregon bond rate. Savings are shown on a monthly, annual, and 30 year basis.

The Excel workbook I created HERE was used to produce these updated estimates.

IRS to Expedite Subordination or Discharge of Tax Liens in Refinancing or Sale.

Announced by IRS last week HERE.

GSE's May Follow FHA Lead on Streamlined Refis.

FHA refinance activity has been high for several months. [See US Current FHA Refinance Report link in right pane of blog for state totals]

Recent government moves have reduced interest rates for other refinances.

According to Housing Wire story HERE, GSE's [Fannie/Freddie] are following FHA model to pump more refinance volume.

Generally, FHA streamlined refis do not require reappraisal [could be some limited circumstances where that is not true]..Logic for FHA has long been that streamlined refis were limited to already insured FHA loans. Any refi therefore that reduced payments for borrower actually reduced risk of default, so long as it did not increase insured amount.. Would assume similar constraints would be placed on refinances of existing GSE loans.

For FHA refinances of conventional loans [largest share of all FHA refis] there is no waiver of appraisal requirement.

Fed Action Spurs Burst of Refinance Interest from Consumers.

So says story HERE from WSJ.

"No One is Making/Getting Home Loans"? NOT Accurate--FHA Home Loans in Oregon in FY '08 Were Nearly $3 Billion.

With credit markets in disarray, it's easy to overlook the home mortgage lending that is quietly taking place.

With my recent post on HECM loans now completed, I thought it might be interesting to add all FHA home loan types (purchase, refinance, and HECM's) into a single table by county to show the number and dollars of FHA lending that took place in Oregon during [federal] FY 2008, which just ended in September.

Even as a long time FHA advocate, I admit that I was blow away at the FY 2008 Oregon FHA loan volume:

• FHA Single Family loan volume was just a few million shy of reaching $3 Billion;
• During FY 2008 FHA helped more than 14,000 Oregon families to:

1. Purchase homes (38% of total FHA loans),or
   
2. Refinance their existing loans (44% of total FHA loans)[Many of these loans were refinances of conventional/subprime ARM loans], or
3. Stay in their homes through the FHA reverse equity/ HECM loan program (18% of total FHA loans) for senior citizens.

The table in the PDF file HERE provides the county level details, and the graph on the second page illustrates the accelerating monthly volume of FHA loans by loan purpose from last October though September of this year.

A couple of additional notes:

1. Adding monthly loan numbers found in the graph, total Oregon FHA loan volume during September 2008 of1,940 loans was an increase of 278% from the total of 513 FHA loans made during October 2007.
2. Adding total loan numbers from the far left column of the table, the 3 county Portland Metro area accounted for a little more than 1/3rd of all FHA loans in Oregon during FY 2008 (5,343/14,244)=38%.