May 15 average daily rates in Orange County for 30-year fixed loans with one-point fee: Conforming up to 5.943%, Jumbo up to 7.239% and Conforming-Jumbo up to 6.827% (Note: conforming-jumbo rates are for loans from $417,000 to $729,750, while conforming is up to $417,000 -- both types are sold to GSEs. Jumbos here are above $417,000 and not sold to GSEs.)
Source: Newspaper Chart Services 
U.S. House passes $300 billion mortgage bill opposed by Bush
May 8th, 2008, 3:11 pm · 17 Comments · posted by Matt Padilla, Register Reporter and Blogger
Dena Bunis, Washington bureau chief for the Register, writes for Mortgage Insider…
Rep. Gary Miller has been trying to find a way for years to get the loan limits raised for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration. He has been among those trying to convince his colleagues that for states like California, the current limits are unrealistic.
He got his wish today when language he and Pleasanton Democrat Jerry McNerney drafted was included in HR 3221, the bill the House passed today to help deal with the housing crisis.
“The bill today creates a real opportunity for homeowners in California to refinance into safe, affordable mortgages,’’ Miller, R-Diamond Bar, said in a statement. “I call on the Senate to follow the House’s lead and enact a permanent loan limit increase as quickly as possible.”
(Editor’s Note: Earlier in the year, Congress passed a bill to raise until Jan. 1, 2009 the conforming loan limit from $417,000 to nearly $730,000 in high-cost markets like Orange County. Conforming loans are eligible for sale to government-sponsored buyers like Fannie Mae.)
And Bloomberg reports…
The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation to let the government insure up to $300 billion in mortgages to help homeowners avert foreclosure over White House objections the measure would force the government and taxpayers to take on excessive risk.
The House voted 266-154 for the housing package offered by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank. The measure would have the Federal Housing Administration insure refinanced mortgages after loan holders agree to reduce principal to make payments affordable.
“We’re in a recession and a major cause of that recession is the subprime crisis,” Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said today on the House floor. “We do not see any alternatives to this bill to try to work on that.”
Democrats in Congress are at odds with Republican lawmakers and the Bush administration over efforts to stem foreclosures amid the worst housing slump in a quarter century. The White House favors a voluntary, industry-led program to modify loan terms and yesterday issued a veto threat against Frank’s bill.
Read the Bloomberg story HERE.
Related Links:
- Bush expands FHA, again, to aid subprime borrowers
- 2009 loan limit — and beyond — back to $417,000, says OFHEO
- Web voices unite against housing bailout
- Are mortgage ‘cramdowns’ really so bad?
- Paulson denounces ‘bailouts’
- Shopping for jumbo loans? FHA your best bet, broker says
- O.C.’s FHA loan limit raised to $729,750
May 8th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I dont completely undertand it, but if bush is against it, then it must be good for the middle class and bad for bankers therefore, yippe.
May 8th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Ummm……. $300 billion sounds like a lot, but when you’re talking about insuring mortgages, that’s a drop in the bucket. Countrywide alone services about $1 trillion in loans.
Can anyone else tell it’s an election year?
May 8th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
The Bush veto signifies the end of the Housing Bubble, the Bailout Bubble, and the Stupidity Bubble.
Housing prices will fall back to levels where families won’t need to lie on their loan apps. Not yet, but soon. Maybe three or four years.
If you believe Mr. Bush did a brave thing by going up against the banks and Wall Street- you’d be correct. The last time a President did that… he got shot. Our President is voting his conscience here. He’s even going up against members of his own party for the good of the country. The banks lost, fair and square, and need to take their medicine.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Let them raise it to $1,000,000.00.
Bottome line is that it won’t matter (unless your committing fruad, such as fixing up tax returns to reflect a higher income.)
One must still quality for the loan amount, debt to ratio no where near what it was in the past five years, 20% down being the norm.
FHA remain a joke (very expensive)
Good luck.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
my condo complex is almost 20% empty with foreclosures and now our HOA dues are going up to cover the difference. anybody says this is only hurting the speculators or liars is nuts. From purchase to now and with a 10% down my condo is worth at least 30% less. I did it right and am being punished for it. I was hoping to sell and move by now.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
1. Banks get susidies.
2. Banks sue defaulters.
3. Banks recover losses.
4. Banks declare record profits.
5. Bank shareholders are very happy.
6. Taxpayers left holding the bag.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Making the higher conforming loan limits permanent is good. So is qualifying for a loan and saving up a down payment.
With actual home-for-home prices (not meaningless medians) actually down 25% - 40% from the peak, buyer interest has picked up markedly in the last few months. Some of these are conservative buyers who actually qualify, too.
Bailing out everybody who lied to get a loan and the lenders that made the stupid loans, however, extends a terrible precedent that was set with the Bear Stearns bailout. (see “How we got into this mess“)
Fortunately, the Administration this time is standing up to Barney Frank’s cynical attempt to tie the two together.
A better idea would be for Congress to step up to the plate and start restraining spending. How about a line-item veto for the next President and her successors? And an end to “bridge to nowhere” earmarks. Even mandatory deficit targets with triggers to mandatory spending cuts and tax increases.
Na–let’s just leave the mess for our grandkids and great-grandkids to clean up.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
How about a line-item veto for the next President and her successors?
Her?
Is JM getting a s e x change while in office? Now that would make history
May 8th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Matt
If you dig a little deeper your stories will have a little more light brought out.
The Gary Miller you reference is a fraud and is currently being investigated just click the link above.
And guess what ” A real estate developer and one of the wealthiest members of Congress, Miller, 58……. Miller has also collected nearly $25,000 a year in rent from his campaign committee in each of the last three elections by using the offices of his real estate development firm in Diamond Bar as his campaign office.
Under federal election law such rents are considered self-enrichment unless a member can demonstrate that the private offices were used for legitimate campaign purposes.
He has come under scrutiny in his district and in Washington for a series of recent votes and other maneuvers that public watchdogs said were ethically and legally questionable.
In August 2005, Miller helped allocate federal funds for street improvements near a development he co-owned in Diamond Bar. In the same bill, he helped insert a provision to close an airport in Rialto used by emergency medical personnel and private pilots, opening up the land to development by one of his largest campaign contributors, Lewis Operating Corp.
In August of this year, The Times reported that Miller had worked with Lewis Operating Corp. to shelter an estimated $10 million in real estate profits from capital gains taxes. In response, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group that earlier helped launch a federal probe of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service asking for an investigation of Miller.
Over the years Miller has been the biggest recipient of the campaign money that he raised from people in his district and big donors such as the National Assn. of Homebuilders, according to campaign finance records.
According to the Washington Post’s database of congressional votes, Miller missed 65 votes during this session, putting him in the top quarter for the most votes missed in the House. ”
So now the complete story is told. Gary Miller is a real estate shrill who wants to manipulate the law to help himself out like he has with every agenda he seems to have pushed in congress.
Matt - Now that is reporting.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Here is the link
May 8th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/67/24448
May 9th, 2008 at 6:26 am
Mr President - please veto this bill to bailout those who lied and cheated on their loan applications. Dont let the renters pay for
their greed. It is just not right.
Vote McCain if you want to save the economy. This bill is frankly
bad for the economy. Free market will correct itself. No need
for such intervention
May 9th, 2008 at 6:42 am
One thing I don’t get about the Barney Frank bill is what happens to second liens? Do they get wiped out?
I can’t imagine a second lien holder letting a borrower do the 85% FHA thing.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:39 am
This bill might help somebody in Debuqe, Iowa or Mesquite, Texas but it won’t do squat for somebody in the OC. 15% off? We’re already past that.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Refinancing at more reasonable rates, I can understand. Reducing PRINCIPAL I can not. There is no good excuse for this.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Another article that hits the median nail on the head:
Market anomalies skew home-price data: Chris Pummer, Market Watch
Commonly cited measures of U.S. home prices are overstating the degree to which the vast majority of Americans’ home values have declined in the last year, producers of two of the most widely tracked indexes acknowledged this week. Top officials with the National Association of Realtors and Standard & Poor’s agreed this week their monthly reports are giving imprecise readings of price changes at all levels — national, state and regional — due to rare market conditions that are skewing survey results. The NAR reported last week that U.S median home prices fell 7.7% in March from a year ago. The decline resulted largely from a market anomaly — a steep decline in costlier home sales due to tighter lending standards and high jumbo-mortgage rates, coupled with a foreclosure-driven spike in cheaper homes.
NAR’s Yun said the financial media is seizing on gloomy numbers and providing little analysis or historical perspective. He freely admits NAR’s readings aren’t accurately reflecting what’s happening with home values for the overwhelming majority of Americans. “Like any economic measure, it can be imprecise, and it is especially so now,” Yun said. As reported Tuesday, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index’s12.7% decline in February was the largest drop since its creation in 2001. Despite that index’s limited seven-year history, the Associated Press reported that home prices “plunged by a record” percentage and “at their fastest rate ever.” The glaring discrepancy in this case is that 17 of the 20 metro areas posted record annual declines, and yet 78% of the 330 metropolitan regions that NAR tracks reported price increases in the latest period — and that despite the acknowledged downward bias in current price readings. “Just like saying the average nationwide temperature today is 57 degrees doesn’t tell you anything, the same is true for real estate prices,” Yun said. “The only way to tell what your own home is really worth is to look at local-market conditions, do Internet research and utilize professionals (such as licensed appraisers) to help determine the value of your home.
This article thoroughly VALIDATES a point I made here TWO months ago.
May 9th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
More Good mortgage news from a lender friend:
The Economic Stimulus passed in February allowed FNMA and FHLMC (FannieMae and FreddieMac) to purchase High Cost Area Conforming Jumbo (HCACJ) loans from lenders. Loans made between $417,000 and $729,600 started closing in March of this year, but no one was willing to buy them. FNMA had not yet created bundles of mortgage securities for these HCACJ’s, nor clear guidelines on how to sell the loans in the first place. In late April these agencies contracted with several banks to accept an HCACJ loan which is why pricing for these products have dropped. What was a 6.5% 30 year fixed HCACJ in April is now a 5.75% HCACJ in May.
Good news indeed. If you are a buyer with 20% down on a $1,000,000 priced home you can get a $700,000 1st at 5.75% and a $100,000 HELOC 2nd at 5.25%. Interest rates on jumbo loans are no longer the biggest stumbling block in front of home buyers today.
And, yes, Virginia, there are PLENTY of such buyers out there, now going into escrow.