Mortgage Delinquencies Rise After Q4 Plateau
Mortgage Delinquencies Rise After Q4 Plateau
March 1, 2010, Reuters
More homeowners are falling behind on their mortgages, jeopardizing the nascent housing recovery and raising the possibility that home prices have not found their bottom but could instead fall further. More than 8 percent of homeowners were behind 30 days or more on their mortgage loans, up 4.4 percent from December 2009 and 21 percent from last January, according to data that Equifax Inc., one of the largest U.S. credit bureaus, provided exclusively to Reuters. TransUnion, meanwhile, said the mortgage delinquencies hit 7 percent.
Fannie's Losses Widen, Prompting Request for More Federal Funding
March 1, 2010, DSNews.com
Fannie Mae says it needs another $15.3 billion bailout from the U.S. Treasury, after the GSE came up $16.3 billion in the red for the fourth quarter of 2009 and posted a loss of $74.4 billion for all of last year. Although the housing crisis is showing signs of lessening in some major markets, it continues to take its toll on the nation’s largest mortgage financier. Fannie Mae’s 2009 annual losses widened compared to the $59.8 billion deficit recorded for 2008, and its Q4 results marked the GSE’s tenth consecutive quarterly shortfall.
As Loans Dry Up, Builders Work for Banks
March 1, 2010, Wall Street Journal
Home builders in some of the nation's hardest-hit housing markets are going to work directly for banks, in a little-used arrangement that is helping to ameliorate conditions in some battered local economies. The builders traditionally got loans from banks to build homes, but that credit has largely dried up. The contract work builders are getting is welcome as many of them struggle to stay afloat. Randy Schaefer, who has been building homes in this city since 1981, recently began working for a bank for the first time. In September, construction lender Housing Capital Co. hired him to help finish a subdivision of 170 homes in the desert outskirts here. While Mr. Schaefer is only being paid a flat fee instead of any profit on the three to four homes a month he has agreed to build, it enables him to keep his eight workers employed.