US Mortgage Purchase Applications at 15-Year Low

US Mortgage Purchase Applications at 15-Year Low

U.S. home mortgage applications for purchases fell to a nearly
15-year low last week as resurgent worries about the strength of
the economy kept buyers at bay, an industry group said on
Wednesday. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally
adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes
both refinancing and home purchase demand, fell 2.4 percent in
the week ended Aug.19. The seasonally adjusted gauge of loan
requests for home purchases tumbled 5.7 percent to its lowest
level since December 1996, the MBA said. Refinance demand also
sagged as interest rates rose, with the refinance index slipping
1.7 percent. "Another week of volatile markets and rampant
uncertainty regarding the economy kept prospective homebuyers on
the sidelines, with purchase applications falling to a 15-year
low," Mike Fratantoni, MBA's vice president of research and
economics, said in a statement. Fixed 30-year mortgage rates
averaged 4.39 percent, up from 4.32 percent.

The Speech that Could Rattle Markets

All those unprecedented monetary policies from Federal Reserve
have conditioned the markets to be treated with kid gloves,
whenever the going gets tough.  So what Ben Bernanke, the central
bank's chairman might end up rattling the markets, by whatever he
says on Friday, at the Fed's annual symposium in Jackson Hole,
Wyoming. With the stock market mired in a month-long slump and
both the U.S. and euro zone economies in danger of sliding into
recession, investors are bracing for a possible repeat of last
year’s performance when Bernanke hinted the Fed would act if
conditions deteriorated.  Two months later, the central bank
began pumping $600 billion into the financial system through
direct purchases of Treasury debt, a second round of stimulus
that markets dubbed "QE2," or quantitative easing  While the
jury's still out on how effective these purchases have been, few
are ready to rule out QE3 entirely. More stock market gains could
be in store if Bernanke gives a strong hint of future action.
After Bernanke's speech last August, the S&P 500 began a rally
that took it up nearly 25 percent by May 2011.

Realtors: White House can Host Housing Summit

A housing recovery is seen as key to America’s economic
strength, and National Association of Realtors wants to make sure
that proposed legislation and regulatory rules or changes to
current programs and incentives don’t further exacerbate
problems within fragile real estate markets across the country.
To help develop policies that will stabilize the nation’s
housing market and support an economic recovery, the NAR had
urged the White House to host a summit of policy makers, industry
leaders and government stake holders focused on revitalizing the
nation’s housing.   “Housing and home ownership issues affect
all Americans, which is why we need strong policies that will
help stabilize the housing market and lead the way out of
today’s economic struggles.” said NAR President Ron Phipps,
broker-president of Phipps Realty in Warwick, R.I. A broad
discussion among all stakeholders about what needs to be done to
put the housing market and economy on a path to recovery could
provide valuable recommendations and solutions to promote
responsible, sustainable home ownership and stabilize and
revitalize the housing industry and economy.

Diana Olick: Best Builder Bets for 2012

Sales of newly built homes are on track to set a new record low
for this year... The street was expecting a flat to slightly down
reading in July, and while the number came in at -0.7%, that
figures in a very large downward revision for June. New homes
aren't selling, new delinquencies are rising, and inventories of
existing homes are way too high. So why am I titling this blog,
Best Builder Bets? Because some analysts out there think that
some builders are well-positioned to profit going forward. Jeff
Meli of Barclay's Capital is naming names and markets. "A couple
of the names that look appealing to us include, Meritage,
Standard Pacific and DR Horton,” says Meli.

He is looking at areas of the country that are seeing some price
appreciation and seeing which builders already have a substantial
base of operations there, because it takes builders up to two
years to get established in a new area. He's bullish on Atlanta,
Washington, DC and, Believe it or not, Phoenix. Phoenix?? He
believes that “Phoenix has a large number of foreclosures to go
through the system; however, looking forward 6-9 months, we think
that a lot of that distressed overhang will be worked through,
and it will actually reach an equilibrium and potentially provide
a robust place for homebuilders to be operating."  While Meli is
looking ahead to which builders are well positioned, Dan
Oppenheim at Credit Suisse is busy revising down estimates on the
big public builders. "We are lowering target prices by an average
of 30%, on the expectation of lower sales, greater pricing
pressure, and increased risk of impairments," he says, while
upgrading Ryland to "neutral" from "underperform."  As we've
suggested before, the housing recovery will be extremely
regional. While all real estate has always been local, factors in
today's housing market, like judicial versus non judicial
foreclosure states, and in today's economy, like unemployment,
make it even more so.

'Surrogate' signing scandal rock LPS and DocX

Lender Processing Services Inc. and its DocX affiliate allegedly
caused American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. to lose millions
from the surrogate signing of mortgage documents, a lawsuit filed
Tuesday contends. Coppell, Texas-based AHMSI filed suit in a
Dallas district court against Jacksonville, Fla.-based LPS
alleging more than 30,000 residential mortgages across the
country were affected by  "improper execution, notarization and
recording of assignments of mortgage."  The lawsuit comes on the
heels of what AHMSI claims was an unsuccessful attempt to recover
its losses during more than a year of talks with LPS. AHMSI said
that LPS first promised to indemnify AHMSI, and then later
claimed no duty to do so because the contract involved with the
faulty assignments had already expired. Certain DocX and LPS
employees were apparently appointed by AHMSI's board of directors
as "special officers" of AHMSI with powers limited to executing
mortgage-related documents, according to the mortgage servicer.

In October, LPS said varying signature styles from its
subsidiary, DocX, resulted from a DocX practice that has been
discontinued and only affected two lenders/servicers, but did not
identify those servicers. The servicer said it terminated its
contract with DocX after the revelation and conducted a 50-state
remediation effort to correct affected assignments. Also in
April, LPS signed a consent order with the Federal Reserve to
settle a federal investigation into foreclosure practices at the
firm and major mortgage servicers. LPS was required to boost
oversight of its processes.

DSNews.com: Median Home Prices Revert to Years Past

Home prices figured out the secret to time travel while no one
was looking. The research firm John Burns Real Estate Consulting
(JBRE) says if you’re looking to find a comparable point of
reference for current median home prices then prepare to take a
trip back in time. JBRE manager   A bevy of Texas markets fall
into this group, including Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San
Antonio, with median prices ranging from $148,000 to $193,000.
Baltimore, with a median of $235,000, and Indianapolis, at
$121,874, also fall into their 2006 price brackets. The firm says
elevated levels of distress, heavy employment losses, and large
booms of sprawling development are common themes among markets
that have lost the most ground. Falling in between the two
extremes of price deterioration, you’ll find Washington, D.C.
(2004 at $311,104), Los Angeles (2003 at $335,000), and Fort
Lauderdale (2002 at $150,000).