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MortgageIT Discontinues Subprime Lending 2007-08-28 09:56:34 In a letter to brokers dated yesterday MortgageIT, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, announced it is no longer originating or funding subprime loans.   No word on the fate of loans currently in process; as the letter only suggests the ever-nebulous “call for more info.” If anyone hears about loans in process please let us know in the comments.  Here is a copy of the letter sent out: To Our Valued Business Partners: This is to inform you that, in light of the current conditions in the secondary mortgage market, effective immediately, we are discontinuing our subprime mortgage product offerings. If we are currently processing a subprime mortgage loan for you, please contact your Account Executive for additional information. We continue to carefully monitor the markets and will reevaluate our product offerings in accordance with any meaningful market shifts. You are a valued business partner and we look forward to continuing to work with you now and into the future. Sincerely ...

Peter Viles on CNN talks CA Housing Bubble 2007-08-28 08:48:21 Friend of Blown Mortgage, the L.A. Times Peter Viles was on CNN recently discussing the current housing situation in Los Angeles and California in general.  A good 3-minute segment in which Peter sums up the state of housing affairs in California nicely. For more Peter be sure to read his excellent L.A. Land blog and check out the podcast interview Peter was gracious enough to do with Blown Mortgage earlier this year. ...

Toronto Commercial Real Estate 2007-08-28 03:31:32 Toronto Among Top Five Most Desirable Locations Altus-Insite Investment Trends Survey respondents continue to rank Tier One Regional Malls as the best property type for investment purposes. This ranking has not changed since the second quarter of 2006. Meanwhile, Edmonton was ranked as the most desired location in Canada. Calgary was second, and Vancouver rounded out the top three spots. Toronto was ranked as the 4th most desirable location to purchase an investment property. See Full Report [in PDF format]. ...

2.6 million real estate licensees 2007-08-28 02:24:10 NAR Membership is still on the rise Numerous news outlets have reported that membership in the National Association of Realtors(R) has declined. That is false. Membership has increased by nearly 6,000 this year. By the numbers, NAR ended 2006 with a record 1,357,732 members. At the end of July 2007, the most recent figure shows we have risen to 1,363,493 Realtors(R). That figure was provided to the Associated Press, which knowingly chose not to include it and also chose not to run a correction or clarification. While the media has been focused on a decline in national sales for the past year, all real estate is local. We expect 2007 to be the fifth highest year on record for existing home sales. That historically strong level is supporting our membership base. According to an outside source, there are about 2.6 million real estate licensees in the United States; about half of them belong to NAR. It appears much of our growth is from non-member licensees choosing to become Realtors(R), ...

2.6 million real estate licensees 2007-08-28 02:24:10 NAR Membership is still on the rise Numerous news outlets have reported that membership in the National Association of Realtors(R) has declined. That is false. Membership has increased by nearly 6,000 this year. By the numbers, NAR ended 2006 with a record 1,357,732 members. At the end of July 2007, the most recent figure shows we have risen to 1,363,493 Realtors(R). That figure was provided to the Associated Press, which knowingly chose not to include it and also chose not to run a correction or clarification. While the media has been focused on a decline in national sales for the past year, all real estate is local. We expect 2007 to be the fifth highest year on record for existing home sales. That historically strong level is supporting our membership base. According to an outside source, there are about 2.6 million real estate licensees in the United States; about half of them belong to NAR. It appears much of our growth is from non-member licensees choosing to become Realtors(R), ...

Best Cities For Singles 2007-08-28 02:13:20 Unlucky in love? Stop beating yourself up ? and think about moving. Maybe to San Francisco. It ranked first for culture and received high marks for number of singles, nightlife, online dating and cool. The “city that never sleeps,” New York, came in a strong second place, thanks to its performance as the country’s No. 1 spot for nightlife. Entertainment mecca Los Angeles came in third; Atlanta fourth, and Chicago fifth. Rounding out the top ten are Washington, San Diego, Seattle, Fort-Worth and Philadelphia. Denver, meanwhile, our top-ranked city from 2004 to 2006, has dropped to 16th place. But before Denver city elders start beating themselves up over this, we should note that this is largely because, amid several refinements to our methodology this year, we’ve switched to a new way of defining each city. In the past, the boundaries and population of each city were drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau’s list of “Metropolitan Statistic ...

How To Survive on a Sluggish Real Estate Market 2007-08-28 00:12:32 If you’ve been reading the recent news of the swooning markets, it’s likely your head is swimming with new terminology: Subprime mess. Credit crunch. Discount rate. For help, I turned to real estate expert Barbara Corcoran. IF YOU’RE BUYING: Shop for a mortgage, then the house. Don’t settle for being pre-qualified - get pre-approval for a certain amount of money. Knowing exactly how much you can spend will give you leverage in negotiations with the seller. However, these days, it’s not uncommon for mortgage commitments to last only a week, as opposed to the old standard of up to three months. Stay in touch with your lender to keep yours updated. Gauge home prices in your area by going to open houses of homes similar to the one you’re eyeing. Then, get three competitive brokers to give you an estimate of what the home is worth. These steps will help you make a smart offer. A nice place to start is 15% below the asking price, if it’s properly pri ...

Impac exits wholesale lending 2007-08-27 12:39:44 Reports indicate that Impac has decided to exit the wholesale lending arena.  They are keeping a small internal retail operation; but have ceased doing business via the broker channel.  This report is courtesy of the ml-implode.com premium email service; which I highly recommend subscribing to if you are interested in the latest news in the mortgage industry. There is no notification on the Impac broker site regarding this announcement.  However; several emails were forwarded to ml-implode.com noting the change in business models. ...

Staging Training Dates for September! 2007-08-27 12:12:52 Whether you are a Decorator, Designer, Organizer, Real Estate Agent or someone wanting to build a staging business - this program is for you! The Certified Staging Professional workshop is a comprehensive program taught through hands-on interaction, with group exercises, roleplays and in depth practical application of work samples, geared to prepare its participants to enter the staging industry with confidence and experience necessary to succeed. Canada: Sep 18th - 20th, 2007 Regina, SK TBD Sep 18th - 20th, 2007 Toronto, ON Christine Rae USA: Sep 3rd - 2nd, 2007 Free Teleclass, MN Lynelle Hartman Sep 10th - 9th, 2007 Free Teleclass, CA Joanne O’Donnell Sep 11th - 13th, 2007 Pittsburgh, PA Nanette Catarinella Sep 24th - 26th, 2007 Long Island, NY Nairn Friemann Sep 24th - 23rd, 2007 Free Teleclass, PA Nanette Catarinella Sep 27th - 29th, 2007 Orange County, CA Joanne O’Donnell ————————— ...

Sources: Wells Fargo to Eliminate 100% Financing 2007-08-27 11:47:01 Wells Fargo will announce the elimination of 100% financing for all credit grades, loan sizes and document types shortly. This move acknowledges the recent downturn in the housing market and the lack of investor confidence in the US housing market. Clearly, very few people with money to buy MBS on Wall Street are betting that home values have stabilized or will show any signs of positive equity gain in the near-term future. I am not sure if this change is going to be nationwide or California only, but I suspect it will be a nationwide change to guidelines. Wells Fargo will continue to do 100% financing in one situation only: they will lend an 80% first with a 20% seller carry-back second for fully documented borrowers only. Other than that 100% financing is imminently is danger of extinction at Wells Fargo. It is clearly the right move, as regardless of credit scores, properties continue to decline in most areas of the country. This information was passed to me by a Wells Fargo repre ...

Condo Living in Downtown Toronto 2007-08-26 02:44:36 Downtown Toronto offers some of the best in condo living. The Toronto core boasts a growing abundance of gorgeous city condominiums that offer such features as fourteen foot ceilings and sunny south east exposures, some so open and spacious you feel like you are living in a house. Well-designed condos with contemporary comfort are providing ready access to a fantastic downtown lifestyle in the residential quadrants of the Toronto core. Owning a condominium provides all of the benefits of owning a home without the responsibility of maintenance and repair such as snow shoveling, grass cutting and gardening. In many condominium complexes you will enjoy the added benefits of 24-hour security, fitness facilities, and recreation & entertainment centres. Downtown Toronto features a large selection of residential options that offer accessibility to the many cultural, historic, educational, leisure, retail and employment opportunities that Toronto holds. The Bloor Yorkville area alone off ...

The Housing Bulls Last Horse Just Died 2007-08-25 14:32:37 Those bullish on housing have continually called blogs such as Housing Panic, Housing Doom, Patrick.net and others chicken littles.  Their shallow reasoning went something along these lines:  “The median housing price is up, meaning that home values continue to increase.  Ergo, the blogs calling the market a declining one are insane.” If you fell for that poorly reasoned argument in the first place I feel sorry for you; but at last, that remaining mirage of hope for the poor folks at the NAR and other disillusioned cheerleaders has evaporated.  The New York Times reports that the median home price is expected to drop for the first time since 1950.  Try to spin that one Lawrence Yun. From the Times: The median price of American homes is expected to fall this year for the first time since federal housing agencies began keeping statistics in 1950. … The reversal is particularly striking because many government officials and housing-industry executives had said that ...

Inconvenient Truths about Home Staging 2007-08-25 09:55:00 Negativity about good things always seems to attract attention. So it is not surprise that in a recent report published by the National Association of Exclusive Buyers Agents (NAEBA) entitled: “How to not get tricked by staging and potentially save $5,645 when you buy your home“� has attracted main stream media attention. While some of the NAEBA report on staging was positive and accurate, most of it was a negative spin they were trying to put on staging in a sensationalized attempt to champion their position that buyer’s agents are better agents then traditional Realtors that work with both buyers and sellers. The basic premise of the NAEBA report claimed that buyer agents were more able to sniff out staging “tricks”� used to disguise problems and deceitfully lure a potential buyer to emotionally be attracted to a problematic home. It’s as if the NAEBA actually believed that home stagers did not know that all homes are eventually professionally in ...

Putting jobs close to home 2007-08-25 03:55:02 Forget long commute to downtown Toronto. The ‘new urbanism’ will allow suburban residents to walk or bike to work and retail stores in a ‘compact lifestyle’. A new live-work development planned for Whitby is part of an evolution in urban planning that will see more of us walking to work, riding our bikes and parking the car, say architects, planners and politicians. “My sense is that we’re at the beginning of what is going to be a profound transition to a more healthy, balanced and sustainable way of building our communities,” prominent architect and urban designer Ken Greenberg said yesterday. A planned development in Whitby that grabbed attention this week may provide homes for 14,000 and jobs for 10,000 when it’s completed in a decade. Residents will be able to live and work in the same community rather than spending hours commuting to jobs in downtown Toronto. It’s the latest in a string of such developments planned or under co ...

What’s going on with the jumbo loan market? 2007-08-24 14:02:00 First IndyMac opened up the jumbo window for full doc originations and now National City, whose small-cap warehouse lending division had frozen jumbo fundings for correspondent lenders, has lifted the restriction on jumbo loans as well. I’m putting this out to our bond trader and secondary friends - what has been the material change in the secondary market regarding jumbos?  Have investors started coming back to the table for jumbo?  What has happened in the last 72 hours that has allowed these banks to open up these programs again? As I mentioned in the IndyMac post it was more of a wade back in, with equity positions and full income documentation required on behalf of the borrower, but are investors being convinced that prime jumbo is less of a risk than initially anticipated?  It sounds like it to me. ...