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Latest Housing Affordability Index Release | Bedford NY Real Estate
At the national level, housing affordability is still at a near-record level thanks to lower mortgage rates and in spite of higher home prices. What is affordability like in your market?
- Housing affordability is down for the month of February in the United States, as rising incomes were not enough to completely offset higher mortgage rates and home prices from January to February. In spite of the slight decrease, affordability remains at a near-record level.
- In fact, after incorporating revised price data, last month was the highest affordability index on record; data goes back to January 1971.
- From one year ago, affordability is down slightly as lower mortgage rates and higher incomes have not completely offset double-digit home price gains.
- By region, affordability is up slightly from one month ago in the West, down in the Northeast and South. There was no change in the Midwest. From one year ago, affordability is higher in all regions except the West, where price gains have had the most dramatic effect.
- In the Midwest and South the median income family earns double what is needed to purchase the median priced home, so affordability remains high.
- What does housing affordability look like in your market?
- Check out the full data release here.
Mortgage rates fall again after weak jobs report | Bedford NY Real Estate
Mortgage rates dipped for the second consecutive week following a disappointing jobs report.
Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.43 percent with an average 0.8 point for the week ending April 11, down from 3.54 percent last week and 3.88 percent a year ago, Freddie Mac said in releasing the results of its latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey. Rates on 30-year fixed-rate loans hit a low in Freddie Mac records dating to 1971 of 3.31 percent during the week ending Nov. 21, 2012.
For 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, rates averaged 2.65 percent with an average 0.7 point, down from 2.74 percent last week and 3.11 percent a year ago. Rates on 15-year fixed-rate loans hit a low in Freddie Mac records dating to 1991 of 2.63 percent during the week ending Nov. 21, 2012.
For five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid-rate mortgage (ARM) loans, rates averaged 2.62 percent with an average 0.5 point, down from 2.65 percent last week and 2.85 percent a year earlier. Rates on five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid-rate mortgage (ARM) loans hit an all-time low in records dating to 2005 of 2.61 percent during the week ending March 21.
Rates on one-year Treasury-indexed ARM loans averaged 2.62 percent with an average 0.3 point, down from 2.63 percent last week and 2.8 percent a year ago. Rates on one-year ARM loans hit a low in records dating to 1984 of 2.52 percent during the week ending Dec. 20, 2012.
Looking back a week, a separate survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed applications for purchase loans down a seasonally adjusted 1 percent during the week ending April 5 from the week before. Purchase applications were up 4 percent from a year ago.
via inman.com
FHA and HAMP Driving Down Nationwide Delinquencies and Foreclosures | Bedford NY Real Estate
The February Mortgage Monitor report released by Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS) found an increase in loan “cure” rates (those loans that were delinquent in the prior month and are now current). The majority of cures were on loans one-to-two months delinquent, with approximately 500,000 loans curing in February alone. As LPS Applied Analytics Senior Vice President Herb Blecher explained, these cures were not unusual, but rises seen in loans three-to-five months delinquent and foreclosure-initiated categories were unexpected.
“Historically, we see these seasonal increases in cure rates in February and March each year,” Blecher said. “What stood out in this month’s data was where that increase was centered. February’s rise in cures was driven almost entirely by FHA loans, representing a 29 percent increase from January, and likely driven by revived modification activity related to the revisions to the FHA’s Loss Mitigation Home Retention options released late last year.
“We also looked at loan modification data released in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Mortgage Metrics report (aggregated by LPS) and saw that, after two years of steady decline, modification volume increased substantially in the last half of 2012, with about 280,000 modifications occurring during that time,” Blecher continued. “The majority of the increases in both Q3 and Q4 occurred in proprietary modifications as opposed to through the Home Affordable Modification Program. Given the current FHA activity, along with the FHFA’s recent announcement of its Streamlined Modification Initiative, we could see continued strength in modification volumes in the future.”
With New Anti-Bubble Rules, Housing Sales Collapse 70% In Beijing | Bedford NY Real Estate
via forbes.com
Whistleblower Report on Bank of America Foreclosures | Bedford NY Real Estate
via ritholtz.com
Subprime lending, 2013 edition | Bedford NY Real Estate
Think subprime mortgages have gone away? Think again, we have one lurking within FHA, with features that are eerily similar to those of the private market that went into hyper-drive in the 2000s, and collapsed in 2007.
The central features of a subprime market are:
- Expensive marketing directed to borrowers with very poor credentials and few options.
- Liberal qualification requirements that allow some of these weak borrowers to be approved.
- Overcharges, with profit margins much higher than those available on other mortgages.
- High default rates.
Expensive marketing: The techniques used in the two recent subprime markets to target potential customers are the same. A letter I received recently described “an event sponsored by a real estate company/mortgage company to help people that have had a foreclosure or short sale get back into a house. We did a short sale on our house about two years ago. While there our qualifications were checked, and a few days later they approved us.” The approval was for an FHA. Other than that, this letter could have been written 10 years ago.
Liberal qualification requirements: The private subprime market depended on the substantial liberalization of underwriting requirements that arose out of the housing bubble during 2000-2007. The prevailing assumption was that rising house prices would convert the otherwise weak subprime loans into good loans — which they did, until the bubble burst, at which point the default rate ballooned.
via inman.com
Folly architecture adds mystique to garden | Bedford NY Real Estate
How about an obelisk in your garden? Or a sun temple? Or a dripping, moss-covered grotto? Or a couple of elegant Muskoka Chairs?
The garden of one famous English estate boasted all of these features and more. It was called Stourhead, and these architectural elements, called follies, were artfully placed along a meandering circular path nearly two miles long. The garden and its follies were designed in 1744 by an amateur landscape designer with the unenviable name of Henry Hoare.
A folly is an architectural structure in the landscape that exists for no reason other than to add interest. Follies were all the rage in English gardens of the late 1700s, when they were an integral part of an architecture and landscape design movement known as the picturesque. The movement espoused pretty much what you might guess — designs were meant to be artfully composed and, well, pretty as a picture. Stourhead was, in fact, literally based upon a landscape painting by Claude Lorrain done a century earlier.
Alas, most gardens don’t have room for Stourhead’s highly creative follies. But a folly doesn’t need a lot of room to be effective. The same design elements that worked for Hoare and others during the golden age of English landscape design can still be used to lend picturesque elements to your own garden.
via inman.com
Historic Homes: Is ‘Owning Old’ Right for You? | Bedford NY Real Estate
via zillowblog.com
Oklahoma Governor Signs New Law Allowing Horse Slaughter | Bedford NY Real Estate
Horse slaughter will soon be a reality in the state of Oklahoma. On Friday, Governor Mary Fallin signed a new law that will allow the animals to be slaughtered, processed and exported all from within the state. The bill, however, prohibits horse meat from being sold in the USA.
According to Huffington Post, the new law hopes to address the large number of starving and abandoned horses within the state as well as the fact that horses set for slaughter are being shipped to Mexico where horse slaughter is legal.
Governor Fallin said about the controversial law, ”In Oklahoma, as in other states, abuse is tragically common among horses that are reaching the end of their natural lives. Those of us who care about the wellbeing of horses – and we all should – cannot be satisfied with a status quo that encourages abuse and neglect, or that rewards the potentially inhumane slaughter of animals in foreign countries.”
Animal activists have been fighting the new law, sadly without success. Cynthia Armstrong, the Oklahoma state director for the Humane Society of the United States, said in response, “It’s a very sad day for Oklahoma and the welfare of the horses that will be exposed to a facility like this. It’s very regrettable.”
It appears that instead of creating programs to help the abandoned horses in the state of Oklahoma, they are seeking to create a money making industry to profit from the sad fate of these horses. The bill received bipartisan support and easily passed in both the State House and the Senate.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
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About Ali Berman
Ali Berman is a writer, teacher and activist. She works as a humane educator for HEART teaching kids about issues affecting people, animals and the environment. Ali is also a fiction writer. Her published work can be found on her website at aliberman.com. In early 2012 Ali co-founded flipmeover, a production company with the mission to use media to raise awareness of social issues.
via ecorazzi.com