Infractions ranged from failing to notify the Department of Housing and Urban Development of changes in license status or office closures, improperly displaying FHA seals on company websites or advertising materials, and using non-employees to process loans, to failing to properly process or document credit, employment and appraisal information.   The actions taken by the Board included permanent withdrawal of FHA lending authority, suspensions, and fines ranging into the high six digits. 

“Lenders should know by now that FHA will not tolerate fraudulent or predatory lending practices,” said FHA Commissioner David Stevens. “Any FHA-approved lender that does business with us must follow our standards. If we determine that our partners are not playing by the rules, we will take action – it’s that simple.”

Firms that were permanently banned from participation in FHA Programs were:

• North Shore Financial, Inc, East Meadow NY for permitting non-employees and/or mortgage brokers to participate in the loan process and other violations.
• Financial Mortgage USA, Inc.; also fined $97,500 for violations of requirements that led to loan defaults.
• Ideal Mortgage Bankers Ltd./Lend America, Melville, NY.; also fined $512,500 for submitting false certifications, failing to adequately document the stability and/or source of income, and other violations.
• Liberty State Finance, Parsippany, NJ; knowingly employing two individuals who were debarred and/or had been convicted of an offense.
• North Shore Financial, Inc., East Meadow, NY; permitting non-employees and mortgage brokers to participate in the loan process and other violations.
• Strategic Mortgage Corp., Oklahoma City, OK was also fined $71,000 for hiring independent contractors and incorrectly reporting compensation to the IRA; improperly charging borrowers a broker fee in addition to an origination fee, and violation of RESPA requirements.
• USA Home Loans, Towson MD; failing to insure that minimum income, credit, and property condition requirements were met and failing to notify HUD that its license had expired.
• U.S. Mortgage Corp, Pine Brook, NJ; failing to maintain an acceptable warehouse line of credit or other approved mortgage funding program.
• Premium Capital Funding/TopDot Mortgage, Jericho, NY; also received a civil penalty of $674,000 for violations of requirements that led to loan defaults.
• ProMortgage, Inc., Claremore, OK; also penalized $124,000 for violations of requirements that led to loan defaults.
• Americare Investment Group/Premier Capital Lending, Arlington, TX; failing to comply with terms of an earlier settlement agreement.
• Ikon Mortgage Lenders, Ft Lauderdale, FL; Federal Guaranty Mortgage Company, Pembroke Pines, FL; Automated Finance Corporation, Calabasas, CA; Premiere Service Mortgage Corp., Westchester, OH.; Direct Lending, Inc., Livonia, MI; Jett Financial Services, Inc., San Diego, CA; closing an office or losing license without notifying HUD

Suspensions of six months to a year and/or civil money penalties were assessed against:

• Meridian Lending, Monroe, GA – One year suspension.
• Action Mortgage Corporation, Cranston, RI – 6 months suspension and $7,000
• Academy Mortgage Corp. Sandy, UT – $30,000
• Assurety Financial Services, Englewood, CO – $7,500
• Cooper and Shein LLC/Great Oak Lending Partners, Timonium, MD – 6 month probation and $11,000.
• Equitable Trust Mortgage Corp., Baltimore, MD – $277,500 civil penalty, refund $147,589 in brokers fees to borrowers.
• Franklin First Financial, Melville, NY – Civil penalty of $413,500; indemnify HUD on 31 loans, and reimburse fees to 78 borrowers.
• Home Mortgage, Inc., Burr Ridge, IL – suspended pending the outcome of a federal indictment.
• Nations Direct, LLC., Irvine, CA – $3,500
• Paramount Bond Mortgage Company, St, Louis, MO – $68,500 penalty; indemnify HUD on nine loans.
• Primewest Mortgage Corp., Lubbock, TX – $168,500.
• Sun West Mortgage Company, Cerritos, CA – $10,000.
• VanDyk Mortgage Corp., Grand Rapids, MI – $7,500; indemnify HUD on two loans

The MRB suspended 905 other companies for one year for failing to comply with the Department’s annual recertification requirements and assessed $3,500 fines against 147 lenders which had been out of compliance but had cured that situation.

All of the actions and the reasons for them were published in The Federal Register dated July 26, 2010

RH Funding Co. is still doing FHA loans down to 620 score! If you believe your credit score to be between 620 and 640, now is the time to apply, before these guidelines change forever.

Courtesy of RH Funding Co Orlando – www.LendingFL.com

Meanwhile, the median selling price of a home in California, according to the California Association of Realtors?, gained 13.6% May to June, resulting in a median price of $311,950. (Again, that is a great distance from the price levels reached during the heat of the real estate boom, but it is surely a move in the right direction.) At the same time, the number of existing home sales in the state declined by 4.2%, a gentle slowing that should cause no concern.

This is most likely what it looks like when the mish-mash created by the $8,000 and $6,500 homebuyer tax credits finally ceases to be much of a factor in the markets. People aren’t going to refrain from entering a transaction because they’ll no longer get a check for $8,000 for buying something.

So we’re beginning to get an idea of the health of the real estate market, which is probably better than most analysts have been declaring it to be of late. To put it quite plainly, most of the American population is ready to get on with it, to buy what it needs to buy, to build up savings accounts and, crucially, to see jobs improve and increase at last. (Remember that, given the amount of cash currently held by most American companies, hiring could start in a serious way the moment people believe the time has come.)

Nonetheless, the economy’s attempts at breaking into a strong and sustainable recovery—and this would include real estate’s attempts—have three forces bearing down on them. First, the federal stimulus programs are expiring, and though this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s fraught with unknowns. We don’t know what the end of many of these programs will mean, second, the debt problems in banks and nations abroad continue, though we have thus far avoided any major damage from them. This past week’s odd exercise with “stress tests” rattled the markets a bit—enough, at least, to support a relief rally when we learned that the results were pretty benign, containing no surprises. Keep in mind that the problems abroad bring a lot of investment into U.S. Treasuries, which in turn causes our interest rates to stay low. And they are likely to remain low for a few months, at the least.

Third, we have a weird group of Catch-22s to deal with. The Fed, for example, bought up over a trillion dollars in mortgages, keeping the home loan market alive. By and large, it worked—but now what? If the Fed attempts to sell off the securities, it inadvertently puts a cap on the value of those securities and that could slow the mortgage finance market greatly. If it holds on to those securities, the end result will surely be inflationary. Heads, you lose; tails…you lose.
How well the recovery proceeds depends in part on how wisely these odd puzzles are solved. Surely, there’s money to be made in what will happen. We just don’t know how yet.

As long as things hold, though, the real estate market is showing itself ready to advance. Doing so with such low rates as fuel is surely far better than what most analysts had forecast many months ago.

Reposted by: Eric M Burgess – Mr. Mortgage
Written by: Bill Fisher

This year’s increasing foreclosure rate and weak job market has encouraged the limiting construction of new homes.  While it is unlikely that the economy will fall back into recession, many analysts anticipate that the housing market will struggle for some time. With builders holding back on production, the number of new homes up for sale in May has fallen to 213,000, the lowest level in nearly 40 years.

But Mike Larson, a real estate and interest rate analyst at Weiss Research, said “what’s really weighing on the housing industry is a dismal labor market that has slowed the broader recovery.   Each new home built creates, on average, the equivalent of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes paid to local and federal authorities”.  The blow is felt across multiple industries, from makers of toilets and faucets to dishwashers and lumber yards.

The building permits data is likely to be particularly discouraging because it is used to measure future construction. Even if homebuilders keep construction to a minimum, it could be three years before the supply of housing comes into balance with demand, said Paul Dales, U.S. economist for Capital Economics.

In some ways, it could be good news that builders are scaling back. It means they won’t add to the supply of homes on the market and that could create more demand for renovations of the current stock.

The average 30 year fixed mortgage rate of 4.57% remains unchanged from a week earlier.  Last year this time, the average 30 year fixed rate was 5.14%.   15-year mortgages were lower of course, at 4.06%,  down from 4.63% a year ago.

These mortgages came with an average required payment of just shy of three quarters of a point (ex. .7 point on a $200k loan=$1,400).

Depending on individual’s situations, it may make sense to buy down your rate (pay points) or it may make sense not to.

Courtesy of RH Funding Co. Orlando ~ www.LendingFL.com

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Bad news, rates have probably bottomed and will head higher.

Last week brought a gale of game-changing news, contradicting recovery, and a whiff of panic. This holiday-short week was news-thin, and mid-July marks the beginning of an often sleepy season for markets and the economy.
    
Panic is sometimes an excellent investment strategy, but it is a difficult frame of mind to maintain. Thus stocks soared 450 points in three days this week, shorts covering, but bond and mortgage yields held extraordinary lows, underlying worry entrenched. The 10-year T-note rose to 3.05% from 2.95% (mostly pricing down in advance of next week’s $69 billion Treasury bond sale), but mortgages stayed put in the mid-fours.

Mortgage refi applications have begun to rise, but purchase ones fell again, by 2% last week, now 42% below the end of April. There isn’t any way to know for sure, but that decline seems far greater than could be explained by the end of the tax credits and  pull-forward of demand. More likely: the tax credits masked an ongoing housing slide.
    
The most troublesome report was consumer credit: May outstandings dumped $9.1 billion, and the $1 billion gain initially reported for March-April was revised to a $14.9 contraction. A debate of sorts continues: bankers and you-deserve-it analysts insist that credit is shrinking because few will apply, and those who do are poor credits.
     
As this episode grinds on, there is no question that many people who would have borrowed two years ago, or last year, to buy something or to invest are now too concerned to do anything. And there are many others whose creditworthiness has weakened since the show stopped in 2007. However, try to tell anyone out here on a real-world sidewalk that credit is not tighter than any time in their lives, and tightening, and they’ll laugh at you.
    
Consider the newest Fannie/Freddie loan data. These GSEs and the FHA are under terrible pressure to stop lending, exerted by factions that have forever hated them (no-government types, most in the financial markets, all bankers, this’ll-teach-yas…). The foolishness of 2002-2006 should never be repeated. However, in 2007 55% of GSE mortgages went to applicants with 720+ credit scores; in 2009, 85%. In 2007, 76% of applicants put down 20% or more; in 2009, 89%.     
    
Those changes are not market movements; those are throughputs of requirements. It is one thing to be cautious. But to re-calibrate standards to tighter than ever before (‘90s, ‘80s, ‘70s…), that is credit starvation, and makes housing recovery impossible.    
    
Another issue: we are in the process of reducing the rate of home-ownership from roughly 69% of households back to something sensible, under 65%. The arithmetic alone demands a new investor-buyer for each home conversion from owner to non-owner (or wait for 15 years’ growth in new households). In 2009, GSE loans to would-be landlords were only two percent of total production. And people wonder why Mr. Market cannot absorb inventory, troubled or not, no matter how far prices fall.
    
We do not have deflation in general prices, but we are years into asset deflation and its very peculiar effects. Interest rates go to record lows, but purchasing power and theoretical affordability are cancelled by lender panic. Furious attempts to de-lever increase leverage, as assets fall in value faster than borrowers can pay down loans.
    
It may be good national policy, supported by consensus, to reduce resources allocated to housing. We may also decide to live with less credit than any time since WWII. However, to attempt such strategic change in the belly of this recession is a failure of observation, public policy, regulation, and imagination.

It’s official!  The tax credit extension has officially been passed allowing prospective home buyers that are currently in contract until  September 30th, 2010 to close.

Originally the $8000 and $6500 tax credits were set to completely expire on June 30th, 2010 but the banks have experienced such an influx of applications both for short sale requests and mortgage applications alike that have made fast closing times a thing of the past.
It is important to not however, that the extension applies only to those buyers that are already in contract.  This does not apply to new contracts placed on homes after the initial deadline of April 30, 2010.

Amazingly enough, mortgage rates are at all time historic lows, yet 2010 has yet to see the big purchase boom that should result from market conditions such as these.

Low rates in Orlando with RH Funding Co. – www.LendingFL.com

According to RealtyTrac, THEY SURE ARE!  They recently reported that foreclosed homes made up 31% of  the residential sales in the first quarter of this year.  Combine that with the fact that the average sales price of these properties was over 26% below the average sales price of properties not in foreclosure and you have yourself a buying strategy. Now throw in the mix a 30-year fixed mortgage rate under 5% and you can realistically set yourself up on easy street for life.

The bottom line – NOW is the time to buy a foreclosed property.  Don’t wait for the market to rebound or the inventory to dry up, the people that have the prudence to buy now will reap the rewards for a lifetime.

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Apply Online www.LendingFL.com

#1 Pay your bills in a timely fashion

Approximately 35% of your credit score is directly related to your ability to make payments on time.  This is very heavily weighed, especially when applying for mortgage financing.  The bank wants to know you will pay your mortgage on time every month.   They are lending you a lot of money in hopes that you pay it back, with interest.  If you don’t typically pay your current debts on time, chances are you may not qualify for a mortgage at all, let alone one with a competitive interest rate.  The more recent the delinquent account, the greater the impact it will have on your score, and ultimately your loan approval decision.

#2 Pay down your credit card debt.

Approximately 30% of your credit score is derived from your proportion of available credit in relation to the total amount of available credit.

Say you owe $3,000 on a card with a $5,000 credit limit, this would be viewed as negative on your credit report and reduce your overall credit standing/score.  If you were to pay this card to below half  (50%) of your available credit limit, you could have an immediate positive impact on your credit score.

# 3 Don’t apply for new credit or loans.

Every unnecessary inquiry (when you have your credit checked by a bank, employer, insurance company, etc.) has the possibility of lowering your credit score as much as 10 points or more.  Be careful who you give your social security number to and try to avoid applying for a mortgage on one of those sites that lenders compete on.  These are just lead portals and they sell your information to random mortgage companies that could possibly pull your credit report and lower your score dramatically.

# 4 Skip the lines at the bank.Often times, consumers go directly to the bank that they have their chacking and savings account with.  These are what is referred to as retail operations and the consumer usually pays a higher interest rate to pay for the higher overhead that banks like this incur.  Don’t rule out your local broker or mortgage lender, they may have access to rates tha aren’t even on the open market.  Pick someone you trust and allow them to do their job, it’s that simple.  Make your decision in the beginning of the process and do all of your homework at the start to avoid last minute surprises.

Rates are the lowest in history right now and they won’t be there for long.  Take advantage and get locked in to a low mortgage rate for the rest of your life, now is the time!  If you follow these simple steps, you can rest assured that the banks will be knocking down your door to finance your home.

Source: Jason L. Gonzalez – RH Funding Co. – Apply online at www.LendingFL.com