Weds News Snippets

Can you say Action?

See the 1st draft of Martha's new video by clicking here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fannie Mae Refinancing Volume Jumps to $41 Billion in February

Nearly three times the refinancing volume the company experienced during the month of January and the largest refinancing volume in nearly a year.
Fannie anticipates that volumes will increase even more as millions of additional homeowners become eligible to refinance under the President's Making Home Affordable plan. ====================

Home Affordable Refinance

Fannie Mae launched its Home Affordable Refinance initiative earlier this month as part of the President's Making Home Affordable plan.

Key features include:

*Additional Flexibilities: Most borrowers refinancing an existing FannieMae loan will not be required to buy new or additional mortgageinsurance if the loan at the time of the refinance is more than 80percent of the home's value. Existing mortgage insurance must becarried forward to the new loan.

*In addition, Fannie Mae can refinance loans up to 105 percent of a home's value with this new flexibility, so even borrowers who are "underwater" -- who owe more than their home is worth -- may be able to refinance. This will expand the number of borrowers able to take advantage of lower interest rates that reduce monthly payments, or refinance into a more sustainable mortgage.

*Streamlined Processing: Beginning April 4, all 1,600 lenders and 29,000 mortgage brokers using Fannie Mae's Desktop Underwriter(R) platform will be able to process an application to refinance any existing Fannie Mae loan, allowing for greater lender origination capacity, more consumer choice and easier refinancing for borrowers.

**What Borrowers Need to Know:

- To qualify, your mortgage loan must be owned by Fannie Mae.- You must have a solid payment history on your existing mortgage.- The expanded refinance flexibility ends in June 2010.

===============================

Mortgage Rates Down This Week

Thirty-year fixed mortgage rates, which had been hovering around the 5.25% mark for about a month, are down to 5.14% this morning on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. Purchase mortgage rates have had a few other small dips in the past week. =======================

Encouraging Signs of Life in the Real Estate Market .

ZIP codes across the country, as once-inflated property prices bottom out housing sales are increasing. =======================

Fannie Tightens Its Conditions for Backing Condo Mortgages

Just as a flood of new condominiums are scheduled to hit the housing market this year, Fannie Mae has added restrictions making it more difficult for developers to sell their units.

The government-backed mortgage-finance company stopped guaranteeing mortgages in condo buildings where fewer than 70% of the units have been sold, up from 51%. In addition, the company won't back loans for sales in buildings where 15% of current owners are delinquent on association fees or where more than 10% of units are owned by a single-entity. ======================

Housing: Two Bottoms

There will be two distinct bottoms for housing:

1) First single-family housing starts and new home sales will bottom.
and then followed some time later ...
2) Prices for existing homes will bottom.