The SmithBrandt Team

Mortgage News

• FHA is Just Being Greedy

  Today’s FHA stats will blow your mind. One of which is the fact that their MMI fund is literally overflowing. So why won’t the lower their MI to the consumer? Regardless of the answer, it needs to be done. The answer to this question and more is answered in an interview with David Stevens that […]

  The post FHA is Just Being Greedy appeared first on National Real Estate Post.

• Pending Home Sales Decline Unexpectedly

  It seemed safe to say, even before the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) released the pending home sale numbers for April, that some analyst somewhere would be able to say, "I told you so." Trading Economics had a +0.8 consensus estimate while Econoday's consensus of 2.0 percent was for growth predictions ranging from 0.8 to 5.0 percent.
  
  Guess what, everybody was wrong. Very wrong
  
  NAR's Pending Home Sale Index (PHSI), which is based on signed contracts to purchase existing homes, dropped 4.4 percent from its  March level to 106.2 in April, very close to the 100 benchmark set 20 years earlier. Year-over-year, signings jumped 51.7 percent compared to April 2020 when pandemic-related shutdowns brought sales to an all-time low. The drop in the PHSI does not bode well for existing home sales over the next few months. Those sales have fallen for the last two months.

• Non-Government Loans See Jump in Forbearances

  The forbearance numbers increased again over the past week although Black Knight, in its weekly report, said these mid- to late-month upticks are becoming common. The number of mortgages in active plans rose by 16,000 or 0.73 percent. The number of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance declined by 1,000 but that was offset by an increase of 2,000 among loans serviced for FHA and the VA and a 15,000 loan rise (2.5 percent) in forbearances among portfolio-held and privately securitized mortgages. As of May 25, there were a total of 2.195 million mortgage loans remaining in forbearance plans, 4.1 percent of all first mortgages being serviced. There were 682,000 GSE loans, 887,000 VA and FHA loans and 625,000 loans serviced for bank portfolio or private label security investors.