The New York Times reports that the only new federally regulated bank to open in the United States this year “operates out of a secondhand double-wide trailer, on a bare lot in front of the cavernous Trinity Baptist Church. A blue awning covers the makeshift drive-through window.” Tiny Lakeside Bank opened in July among the oil refineries and casinos of Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Former Louisiana State football tackle Hartie Spence is Lakeside’s manager. The article describes

average rating:

Forget loan mods, low interest rates and scrapping Fannie and Freddie. As sales of previously occupied homes plunged last month to their lowest level in 15 years, economist Gerald Celente says the only thing that will save US housing is a boom in American job creation. Celente's predictions have proved correct many times. He is credited with predicting the 1987 stock market crash, the economic collapse of the Soviet Union and the subprime mortgage bubble and bust.

"There's no double

average rating:

This past Tuesday, mortgage executives, financial leaders, and economists met with U.S. Treasury officials to share ideas about the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of which are in conservatorship. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said there would be “fundamental change” to the structure of the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). Geithner also said, “We will not support a return to the system where private gains are subsidized by taxpayer losses.”

The U.S.

average rating:

Fannie Mae and the National Council of State Housing Agencies have a fabulous offer for anyone with an income and good credit--buy a house for just $1,000 down. (Normally, Federal Housing Authority mortgages require a 3.5% down payment.)

It is a pilot program called Affordable Advantage. The Washington Independent reports that the program has been adopted in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Idaho and Pennsylvania, California and Colorado have programs almost identical to Affordable

average rating:

Wells Fargo & Co. Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf tells Bloomberg that he likes a lot of President Barack Obama's 2,300 page financial reform bill which is now law. His bank has $1.2 trillion in assets.

“Too-big-to-fail has been dealt with,” Stumpf said. He explained that the creation of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a system-wide risk regulator will prevent crises caused by the collapse of a mammoth banks or lender.

Stumpf also said new consumer protection

average rating:

The original March 2008 agreements between the Attorney General of New York, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (now the Federal Housing Finance Agency) and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that established the Home Valuation Code of Conduct will expire in November 2010 (originally July 2010). After that, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are no longer obligated to maintain the HVCC.

In addition, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which has already

average rating:

In an effort to continue to improve the quality of the appraisals Fannie Mae receives, the GSE has instituted some new appraisal requirements and made some clarifications. The good news for our customers is that FNC's Collateral Management System® (CMS®) and Collateral Headquarters™ (CHQ) platforms as well as the AI Ready data standard make compliance with these changes essentially automatic. Your appraisers will be able to get you the data you need and your system will be able to track and

average rating:

Humans aren't the only ones who lose their homes during a foreclosure. The American Humane Society says animal shelters have been overwhelmed by abandoned pets whose owners who lost their houses. Some delinquent home owners simply move out and leave the pets locked inside the abandoned home. Weeks later, the lender’s agent finds the terrified pets in an empty, filthy.

The problem is

average rating:

The FNC annual Collateral Management Conference provided an excellent opportunity to discuss the current state of appraisal data delivery initiatives and related dependencies. Senior executives from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA and VA were present as well as executives responsible for collateral at the nation’s leading lenders, servicers and management companies.

We learned that the push to have appraisal data delivered to the secondary market, starting with Fannie Mae, continues

average rating:

It has been an active year for appraisal management company (AMC) legislation. Because of the activity, we presented an update on AMC legislation in June, 2009. Since then we have updated the presentation itself to keep up with the various changes this year (although we did not catch everything).

For those of you who are keeping

average rating:

Recently one of our clients asked us to look at the relationship between sales price and appraised value across the country. We looked at about 200,000 sales transactions over the first nine months of the year and found that most of the appraised values were above the actual sales price.

The chart below shows the percent of purchase transactions where the sales price was above the appraised value.

» read full post

average rating:

posted in: Appraising, FNC, Lending, Mortgage, Valuation