Mortgage Payment Program

All you homeowners out there, as you read the real estate headlines and wonder how and if we are ever going to see a full recovery in the housing sector, I want you to think about the factors that went into you qualifying for your home.  Most of us had to fully qualify for our mortgage based on a full documentation mortgage. The mortgage company looked at several key items: your ability to pay the loan which was based on your income, your willingness to repay the loan which is based on your credit score, and whether or not the collateral (the home you put the mortgage on) supports the price you were willing to pay.

The first two factors are pretty straightforward.  You give them bank statements, pay stubs, and tax records to validate your income and ability to pay.  Your credit score reflects your payment history on your previous credit lines and loans. Those who want to blame the sub-prime market for the housing crises can look at these tow factors as the driving cause.  Sub-prime loans often overlooked the ability to pay because they did not require the borrower to fully document their income or assets.  Lenders were also willing to accept a lower credit score – and potential lower ability to pay – in exchange for higher fees and higher interest rates.  There is not denying the impact bad sub-prime loans have had one the housing market, but they are also a smaller percent of the overall loans made over the last 5-6 years. There is also a disturbing trend of people who had strong documented incomes and solid credit scores whose homes are now in foreclosure despite that.  That is where home values come in.

Home values for mortgages can be based on many different things.  Most often the value is based on an appraisal made by a professional appraiser.  The appraiser visits the home, evaluates the items inside and outside the home that make it either similar or different than the other similar homes in the area, the evaluate recent sales of similar homes locally, and then submit a report documenting their opinion of the home’s value.  This is not an exact science, but a trained, experienced local appraiser is one of the best sources to obtain an accurate opinion. Unfortunately, loan officers and brokers who source the appraiser work out often put tremendous pressure on appraisers to “hit the number” or bring in an appraised value that supports the mortgage amount requested by the borrower. When this happens, the collateral of the home is not accurately reflected and when the market slows down, as it has in South Florida, California, and Las Vegas then the overstated home values become a problem.

People who are paying as agreed see neighbor’s homes foreclosing on a regular basis and the number of for sale signs in the community seems to grow daily.  Eventually, these people ask the question: are we better off just walking away from this home since it is now worth $200,000 less than what we bought it for?

Some economist and real estate experts predict another wave of foreclosures as homeowners in down markets become frustrated, disillusioned, and ultimately walk away from their homes and good credit just to get out from under the decreased home values. Whether, this happens or not remains to be seen. One thing is for sure; expect additional oversight in all areas of the home lending process in the future.

Some lenders are investors are now looking to sophisticated computer models to determine the home value.  These models are not new – in fact millions of American’s use scaled down versions online to get an online estimate for their home values by going to sites such as Domania.com and Zillow.com.  What you may not know is that the data companies that source these models have robust versions that can accurately calculate the homes value.  Some recent models have been referred to as “hedonic” models.  Based on the word “hedonism” which means to derive pleasure, these models look at the aspects of the home where people derive pleasure from using them.  This includes things like a gourmet kitchen with granite counter, luxury master suites, upgraded roof, and in ground swimming pools.  The models gather information recorded in public record files, apply unique values for each item, and then calculate the value compared to other homes.  The process is similar to that applied by the professional appraiser but is completely automated and free from the human bias.  These automated valuation models are fairly common and may be leveraged more frequently to determine the home value for underwriting purposes n the near future.

In writing blogs about the mortgage and housing markets lately, it has been difficult to find anything not relatively depressing to write about. There simply is not a lot of good news about housing these days. This week, for the first time in what seems like months, I saw articles with at least a glimmer of good news.
New home sales rose unexpectedly in April over March but still remained near historically low levels. According to a key government report on the battered housing market, April sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000, up 3.3% from March. The reading was above the consensus forecast of 520,000. Another small bit of potentially good news is that, according to the same report, The median price of a new home sold in April was $246,100, up 1.5% from $242,500 a year earlier.
Like I said, it is a little good news. Unfortunately, that good news is still offset by the reality that April home sales were down 42% from their level a year earlier so that small rise in home sales prices could be skewed slightly and may not accurately reflect an uptick in home values.
By no means does this indicate the end is in sight to the housing slump. Far too many other key indicators point to tough times ahead for a while longer in the housing sector. I just thought it would be nice for a change to find some good news to talk about.

The Federal Reserve continued their long string of lowering rates and recently lowered rates again. The question I have been getting asked a lot lately is “Will this reduction lower mortgage rates and help with the mortgage crisis?” My answer to them is “Not so much.”

For those who watch mortgage rates closely have noticed that mortgage rates have actually risen slightly after of few of the recent Fed rate drops. Why? The rates that the Federal Reserve has been lowering are the rates at which banks borrow money. In a simple world, if the bank has access to cheaper funds that should mean that it trickles down to the consumers and drives down our cost to access funds in the form of loans. The mortgage market is much more complicated than that with access to funds, and the rates, driven mostly by Wall Street and their demand to buy and sell mortgage backed securities. This demand still remains low largely due to the still existing issues around declining home values and the still rising delinquency and foreclosure rates.

So, if the drop in rates by the Fed isn’t going to help the current mortgage and housing climate, what will? The best answer I can offer is time. At some point the inventory of houses will begin to shrink and home values will stabilize and the housing market will begin to recover. The silver lining? For those people who have equity in their homes – either from buying at a low point or paying down the principal balance faster – or cash to put down on a home there are a lot of bargains in the market to be had.