Here is your open thread for the weekend beginning Friday August 12th, 2011. You may post random links and off-topic discussions here. Also, if you have an idea or a topic you’d like to see covered in an article, please make it known.
Be sure to also check out the forums, and get your word in the user-driven discussions there!
Bank of America Offloads Troubled Mortgage Portfolio To Fannie Mae
The government is lending another helping hand after it was announced that Fannie Mae was purchasing the servicing right to a part of Bank of America’s troubled mortgage portfolio. The principal balance on the portfolio being transferred over to government-controlled Fannie Mae is estimated at around $73 billion.
This deal could be viewed as somewhat of a “back-door bailout,” as some people are calling it. The government may not be directly helping Bank of America with funds, but it is certainly helping to absorb some of its losses, letting the bank offload a part of its mortgage portfolio onto Fannie Mae. The portfolio is expected to deteriorate further.
http://www.istockanalyst.com/finance/story/5353862/bofa-bac-offloads-troubled-mortgage-portfolio-to-fannie-mae
Agents tell clients to remove personal photos from houses prior to listing, because that prevents buyers spending time looking at the photos, instead of the house. I wonder what buyers look at if you give them special brownies? ;-)
http://blog.seattlepi.com/people/2011/08/11/rose-mcgowans-pot-brownies-got-realtors-high/
RE: Pegasus @ 1 – That’s just the servicing rights, not the underlying debt, and may be an indication that Fannie is getting tired of half-ass servicing of the loans. Servicing used to be the profitable gravy part of a mortgage transaction, but then it became difficult.
Personally I think Fannie should just require proper servicing and sue the banks for damages that result from improper servicing. It isn’t a defense to doing the job right that you underbid the job.
RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 3 – BofA paid them some money to take them off their hands. Oviously BofA recognizes that it will cost them a whole lot more to keep servicing them. No mention of whether they were Fannie loans or not.
RE: Pegasus @ 4 – I think you have that backwards. Fannie purchased them, so the money would be going from Fannie to BOA. BOA is selling them at a loss though, so they apparently paid more to service them than what they are getting.
I doubt Fannie would be buying these servicing rights if they were not Fannie loans, but it is possible. Maybe that’s how Fannie is going to start making some money! ;-)
RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 2 –
You must be a fan of ‘I Love You Alice B Toklas’.
Wow, they really cracked down on the banksters in the UK. Jail time!
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/08/2011812101829769247.html
Pegasus (and others), you might want to read this on what recording statutes do:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recording_%28real_estate%29
A deed (or deed of trust) is effective on delivery to the other party (buyer, bank, etc.), but recording notifies third parties of the existence of the deed. That prevents the seller from selling the property twice, or getting a loan while claiming no other loans are outstanding. Even without recording, however, the deed or deed of trust remains valid, as long as the other party had delivery. And if you happen to be in possession of the property (e.g. a buyer holding under an unrecorded deed, and living in the property), you would still have some protection even if unrecorded, because there is a duty to inquire as to how someone is residing in a house.
RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 8 – Was not the point Kary. It was backdating, forging, robosigning, false notarizing, perjuring, fabricating assignments years later, creating phony documents that don’t exist that the foreclosure nightmare is all about. It isn’t about obscure facts that don’t apply.
RE: Pegasus @ 9 – You apparently have a memory problem. The delay in recording was the only thing I mentioned in the foreclosure thread yesterday. But so that you can remember:
By Kary L. Krismer @ 25:
Cracker Box Alley in Lake Stevens The price variations from Short Sales and current list prices are large. Some would argue that this development should never have been permitted.
Somebody was recently asking about the difference between the US Govt 10 year Treasury Note rate and mortgage rates. I found a comparison of the two.
http://rpbsinvsvcs.blogspot.com/2011/08/mortgage-rates.html
(note: the time scale between the 2 charts is different).
It appears that there is no time lag between decreases/increases in 10 yr rates/mortgage rates. What is different, currently, is that Treasury 10 yr rates have dropped below the lows of 2010. Mortgage rates have not. I suspect the reason is that there is an increased “risk premium” being added to mortgage rates.
By Bingo @ 12:
I recently mentioned the correlation between the rates. I think there may be a slight lag to see if they stay low but overall they follow. Other factors affect the mortgage rate also such as supply and demand. The article you point to mentions such a factor as people rush to refinance increasing demand. Also remember the move in the 10 year was so sharp last week that it only hit the new low in rates vs 2010 in the past two or three days. Mortgage rates last week were being offered almost as low as the low in 2010. If the 10 year stays low I suspect over the next few weeks you will see the mortgage rates drop lower than 2010. I suspect we will see mortgage rates sub 4.00 percent by year end. The national rate was 4.32 last week. We are not far away.
“Mortgage giant Freddie Mac says 15-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.5% this week, a record low, while 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 4.32%, the lowest in nine months and near a record low.
While interest rates have been going down for three years, home sales have remained weak because of the dour economy. But refinance applications were up 30% for the week ended Aug. 5, putting them at their highest level of the year, the Mortgage Bankers Association says.”
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2011-08-11-mortgage-rates-low_n.htm