Congress Passes FHA/GSE

Dear Igor,

Thank you for taking action on the recent Call for Action on the FHA/GSE legislation. We are happy to report that the U.S. Senate today passed a final bill on FHA and GSE that NAR had long fought for, after deliberations and negotiations for the past few weeks. The House passed the identical bill on Wednesday, July 23. For more information, read the bill summary. The President has said he will sign the legislation into law.

This bi-partisan legislation, we believe, will aid in calming mortgage markets, strengthen housing markets, and stabilizing our economy. As a result of your efforts, the new loan limits are now set at $625,500 for the GSEs and FHA, as well as an $7,500 home ownership tax credit. The legislation also includes broad GSE Reform, FHA Reform, development of a National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and creates a new FHA program to help homeowners at risk for foreclosure.

NAR thanks you for your support for this important legislation. It proves that when REALTORS® speak Congress must act.

Jerry Giovaniello
Senior Vice President, Government Affairs
& Chief Lobbyist

Response to Igor Korosec regarding his support for permanently increasing the conforming loan limit

Dear Mr. Korosec:

Thank you for contacting me to express your support for permanently increasing the conforming loan limit. I appreciate the time you took to write and agree with you.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) plays an important role in insuring home mortgages for those in underserved communities. It is critical that FHA programs be modernized to provide more homebuyers and borrowers looking to refinance with the opportunity to obtain an FHA loan. This remains especially important in California where the cost of housing remains high. For homebuyers faced with so-called "jumbo loans" subject to higher interest rates, raising the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) conforming loan limit will bring more liquidity to the market and lower interest rates.

On February 13, 2008, the President signed the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 (H.R. 5140) into law. As the bill was being developed, I sent a letter to Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) expressing strong support for increasing the previous GSE conforming loan limit of $417,000 and the FHA loan limit of $362,790 to $729,750. While I am pleased that a temporary increase was included in the bill, the new loan limits will expire on December 31, 2008.

On July 11, 2008, the Senate passed the "Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008," (H.R. 3221) introduced by Senators Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT) and Richard C. Shelby (R-AL). Prior to Senate consideration of the bill, I urged Senators Dodd and Shelby to keep the FHA loan limit and GSE conforming loan limits at the current level of $729,750. The Senate passed its version of H.R. 3221 on July 11, 2008. While the Senate-passed version of the bill would only raise the loan limits to $625,500, the House-passed version would keep them at their current level. On July 11, 2008, I joined 52 members of the California Congressional delegation in sending a letter to leaders of the Senate and House leadership urging them to retain the $729,750 limits in the final version of this important bill.

I fully support the higher limit and will continue to push to make it permanent.

Thanks for writing.

Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

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5 Big Credit Mistakes

It's surprising how many consumers make the same credit scoring mistakes over and over again. In an effort to educate consumers on credit and credit scoring, we've compiled 5 common credit scoring mistakes into a list that defines each mistake and explains why they are bad and how to avoid them:

Credit Mistake #1: Closing Credit Cards Accounts
This is probably THE biggest credit mistake that consumers make. What you may find surprising is that closing credit card accounts can hurt your credit score almost as badly as missing a payment.
Not only is this the number one on the top five credit scoring mistakes, it's also number one on the list of credit myths.
Ironically, most consumers make this mistake based on poor advice from a mortgage lender as a strategy for improving their credit scores. A word of advice people, when you're dealing with something as sensitive as your credit and credit scores, make sure you do your homework before trusting some of these so called 'industry experts' before following through with their advice.
There are two important reasons why you should not close credit card accounts:
1. Eventually, the accounts will fall off of your credit reports - The information in your credit reports are subject to certain rules in regards to how long it can remain in the report. In most cases, credit information will remain in your credit reports for seven years from the account's DLA or date of last activity.
When an account is open, the DLA will continue to update each month and the open account will never reach that seven-year mark.
If you close the account, the DLA will stop updating and the clock will start ticking. Eventually the account will be completely removed from your credit reports.
Why would this be a bad thing?
It's simple - you never want to get rid of old, positive information in your credit reports. This information actually helps your credit scores.
Credit scores want to see this positive account information. They want to see your long, perfect history of making your payments on time because this information significantly helps your credit scores.
This information significantly helps your credit scores so why would you ever want that history to disappear? You wouldn't! Here's an analogy for you: let's say you made straight A's in high school. What if the record of that perfect scholastic accomplishment were permanently deleted seven years after you graduated? Would you ever want that history deleted? Of course you wouldn't. The same is true for the credit reporting environment.
So, what should you do with old credit cards that you don't use any longer?
What you don't want to do is to let the account become inactive. When this happens, the credit card companies aren't generating any revenue for your account.
Eventually they'll close the unused account because you're more of a liability than an asset. You can prevent this from happening by using the card every few months for low dollar purchases like dinner or a tank of gas.
When the bill comes in, just pay it in full. If you do this, it will ensure that the account will never be closed and you'll always get credit for your good payment history.
2. You could cause a spike in your revolving utilization and tank your scores - The percentage of your available credit in comparison to the debt you owe is a very important factor in calculating your credit scores.
This is often called "revolving utilization," or your debt-to-limit ratio.
For example, if you have an open credit card with a $1,000 credit limit and a $500 balance then you are using 50% of your available credit. This means that you are 50% utilized on this particular credit card.
Now lets add a second credit card to the mix.
Let's say you have another open, but unused credit card account with a $1,000 limit and a $0 balance. This would put your total revolving utilization at 25% because you have $2,000 in available credit limits and $500 in total balances.
If you divide your total balances by your total credit limits, you'll get your total aggregate revolving utilization: $500 divided by $2000 equals .25 or 25%.
So how will closing unused credit cards hurt your credit score? When you close an account, the amount of available credit decreases, which could result in a higher revolving utilization and lower your score.
Let's use the example from above and close the second unused credit card account. When you close the account, you remove it from any utilization calculation and now you're stuck with one open credit card account with a $1,000 limit and a $500 balance.
This caused your utilization to go from 25% to 50%.
Remember, you divide the total balance by the total available limit so $500 divided by $1,000 is .50 or 50%. As this percentage increases, your credit score decreases.
When you're talking about several unused credit cards with high limits, you can just imagine what closing credit card accounts could do. I've seen consumers go from a 10% utilization to almost 100% utilization because they closed all of their credit card accounts except the one they were currently using.
Big mistake.

Credit Mistake #2: Missing Payments
It doesn't take a credit scoring expert to tell you that missing payments is a bad thing. The only reason I made missing payments second to Closing Credit Card Accounts is because this one is a no brainer.
It shouldn't take a credit expert to tell you that missing payments is bad. Common sense should tell you that missing payments is bad. Credit scores are designed to predict how likely you are to miss payments in the future.
This means that they look at your credit history to view how you've managed all of your credit obligations.
Missed payments is the most powerful predictor of future late payments. The FICO score evaluates previous late payments in three different layers:
How Severe - How severe is the late payment? It doesn't take a statistician to tell you that a 30-day late isn't as bad as a 90-day late. The more severe the late payment, the more damaging it is going to be to your credit scores.
Consumers who have missed payments by a few weeks and then bring their accounts current score much better than consumers that have gone 90+ days past due. In fact, a 90-day past due is the threshold that will wreak havoc on your scores.
If you are unable to avoid a late payment, the next best option is to get those accounts current as quickly as you can.
How Recent - How long ago did the late payment occur?
If you've read some of my previous articles on credit scoring, you'll know that the last 24 months of your credit history are critical because the FICO score places more emphasis on your recent credit patterns.
This means that a late payment 6 months ago is going to carry much more weight than a late payment from 4 years ago. To recover from late payments it's important that you get current and stay current.
How Frequent - How often have the late payments occurred? Consumers that miss payments frequently are penalized much more severely than those that have missed a payment here or there in their past.
If you have a tendency to make late payments your credit scores will reflect your bad habits. Make your payments on time and you'll never have to worry about losing points in this category.

Credit Mistake #3: Settling Accounts
One of the most common mistakes consumers make is assuming that 'settling' with a lender is a great way to save a little cash.
Unfortunately, they don't realize what that a 'settled' indicator in their credit reports is actually derogatory.
"Settling" is a term used in the consumer credit industry that means accepting less than the amount you owe on an account. For example, if you owe a credit card company $5,000 but you can't pay them the full amount then they will likely make you a deal for less than that full amount. They have "settled" for less than the full amount, which is likely much less than you contractually owe them.
This may seem like a good idea because you save quite a bit of money but as far as the credit scoring models are concerned, this is just as negative as other severe late payments.
The only way to avoid the damage to your credit scores is to arrange a deal with the lender to report the account as 'paid in full' as opposed to 'settled'. If they don't agree then it's in your best interest to figure out how to pay them in full or else be prepared to suffer the damage to your credit for the next 7 years.
It's also important to understand that if the account has already made it to the collection phase, the damage is already severe and settling won't really make a difference. Settling is only an option if the account has already made it to a severe delinquency state.

Credit Mistake #4: High Revolving Utilization on Your Credit Cards
Most consumers believe that making your payments on time is all it takes to have good credit and earn great credit scores.
What they don't realize is that almost a third of your score is determined by how much you owe on your credit card accounts. If you have high balances on your credit card accounts, you're credit scores could be severely impacted by your revolving utilization.
In order to score the most possible points in this category, I advise keeping your revolving utilization at 10% or less.
Don't be fooled when you hear some of these celebrity experts telling you that 50%, 30% or even 25% is best.
While 30% is considerably better than 50%, 10% or less is ideal. The lower the utilization percentage, the better your score will be. (*To read more about revolving utilization and how it's calculated, please read the revolving utilization bullet in Mistake #1.)

Credit Mistake #5: Excessively Applying for Credit
Whenever you apply for credit your application gives the lender permission to access your credit reports. When they pull your credit reports, it automatically posts an inquiry in your credit record. This inquiry is a record of who pulled your credit report and the date it occurred.Â
Credit scoring models use inquires to determine if and when you shop for credit. Statistics show that consumers who have more inquiries are higher credit risks than those with fewer inquiries.
It is for this reason that the more inquiries you have, the more points you lose in the credit score calculation.
The exact point value of inquiries is a much argued topic and is impossible to give an exact point value because it really depends on all of the other information included in your individual credit file.
The best strategy would be to only apply for credit when you absolutely need to.
This means that you should avoid those in store offers of "10% off" in exchange for applying for a store credit card. This may sound like a great idea but the reality is that while you may save a few bucks on your purchase, those inquiries could end up costing you a lower credit score which could result in higher interest rates on auto or mortgage loans in the future.
There you have it. Now that you know the top 5 credit mistakes, you can avoid making the same mistakes that so many other consumers make.

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Home Ownership Preservation Loans

The FDIC is proposing that Congress authorize the Treasury Department to make loans to borrowers with unaffordable mortgages to pay down up to 20 percent of their principal. The repayment and financing costs for these Home Ownership Preservation (HOP) loans would be borne by mortgage investors and borrowers. This approach is scaleable, administratively simple, and will avoid unnecessary foreclosures to help stabilize mortgage and housing prices.

This proposal is designed to result in no cost to the government:

• Borrowers must repay their restructured mortgage and the HOP loan.
• To enter the program, mortgage investors pay Treasury's financing costs and agree to concessions on the underlying mortgage to achieve an affordable payment.
• Treasury would have a super-priority interest -- superior to mortgage investors' interest -- to guarantee repayment. If the borrower defaulted, refinanced or sold the property,
• Treasury would have a priority recovery for the amount of its loan from any proceeds.
• The government has no continued obligation and the loans are repaid in full.

Mortgage Restructuring:

• Eligible, unaffordable mortgages would be paid down by up to 20 percent and restructured into fully-amortized, fixed rate loans for the balance of the original loan term at the lower balance. New interest rate capped at Freddie Mac 30-year fixed rate.
• Restructured mortgages cannot exceed a debt-to-income ratio for all housing-related expenses greater than 35 percent of the borrower's verified current gross income ('front-end DTI'). Prepayment penalties, deferred interest, or negative amortization are barred.
• Mortgage investors would pay the first five years of interest due to Treasury on the HOP loans when they enter the program. After 5 years, borrowers would begin repaying the HOP loan at fixed Treasury rates.
• Servicers would agree to periodic special audits by a federal banking agency.

Process:

• Mortgage investors would apply to Treasury for funds and would be responsible for complying with the terms for the HOP loans, restructuring mortgages, and subordinating their interest to Treasury.
• Administratively simple. Eligibility is determined by origination documentation and restructuring is based on verified current income and restructured mortgage payments.

Funding:

• A Treasury public debt offering of $50 billion would be sufficient to fund modifications of approximately 1 million loans that were "unsustainable at origination." Principal and interest costs are fully repaid.
  

Eligible Mortgages:
Applies only to mortgages for owner-occupied residences that are:

1. Unaffordable – defined by front-end DTIs exceeding 40 percent at origination.
2. Below the FHA conforming loan limit.
3. Originated between January 1, 2003 and June 30, 2007.

• Home Ownership Preservation Loans: Questions and Answers
  
• Home Ownership Preservation Loans: Examples
  
• Related Link: Financial Times, April 29, 2008 – Op Ed: How the State can Stabilise Housing Market
  
• FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair at the Brookings Institution Forum, The Great Credit Squeeze: How it Happened, How to Prevent Another; Washington, DC – May 16, 2008
  
• FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair at the Brookings Institution Forum, The Great Credit Squeeze: How it Happened, How to Prevent Another; Washington, DC – May 16, 2008 – Video (Courtesy of C-SPAN – www.c-span.org)
  

Senate passes foreclosure rescue

Did you hear the big news? Your Senate just passed the mortgage rescue bill to give homebuyers a TAX CREDIT of up to $8,000. This tax credit will stimulate home buyers to get off the fence and buy foreclosure resale deals now, which translates into shorter investor hold times, faster resales, and bigger banked profits.

Unlike earlier versions of this bill ($7,500 credits for foreclosure buyers only) this $8,000 tax credit is good for first time home buyers (or anyone who has not owned a home in the last 3 years). And it will be much farther reaching by affecting ALL types of homes.

Jul 11, 2008 5:55 PM (3 days ago) By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, AP
WASHINGTON (Map, News) - A mortgage rescue to help hundreds of thousands of struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure and get more affordable, safer loans passed the Senate overwhelmingly Friday, but it faces a bumpy road amid continuing turmoil in the housing market.

The 63-5 vote reflected a keen interest by Democrats and Republicans to send election-year help to distressed homeowners with economic issues topping voters' concerns.

The plan lets homeowners buckling under mortgage payments they can't afford keep their homes and get more affordable mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration. Banks that agreed to take substantial losses on those distressed loans could avoid costly foreclosures and be assured of recovering at least some money.

The new program would let the FHA insure as much as $300 billion in new mortgages, helping an estimated 400,000 homeowners. Full Story

FORECLOSURE RELIEF BILL BECOMES LAW

Friday, July 11, 2008
Brought to you by the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

This week, the State Legislature enacted foreclosure reform law to address the adverse effects of high foreclosure rates in California. The new law requires lenders to contact homeowners to explore options for avoiding foreclosure at least 30 days before filing a notice of default. It also requires owners acquiring property through foreclosure to maintain the exterior of vacant residential properties. The new law also extends from 30 to 60 days the time for residential tenants to move out of properties that have been foreclosed upon, unless other laws apply. These requirements will remain in effect until January 1, 2013. The full text of Senate Bill 1137 (Perata) is available at www.leginfo.ca.gov.

Highlights of the new law are as follows:

Contact Between Lender and Borrower
Effective on or about September 8, 2008, a lender, trustee, or authorized agent may not file a notice of default until 30 days after contacting a borrower to assess the borrower's financial situation and explore options for avoiding foreclosure. A lender must generally contact the borrower in person or by telephone, or satisfy due diligence requirements for contacting a borrower. During the initial contact, the lender must inform the borrower of the right to request a meeting with the lender within 14 days. The lender must also give the borrower the toll-free number for finding a HUD-certified housing counseling agency. A subsequent notice of default must include the lender's declaration that it has contacted the borrower, tried with due diligence to contact the borrower, or the borrower has surrendered the property. A lender who had already filed a notice of default before the enactment of this law must include a similar declaration in the notice of sale. This requirement to contact borrowers applies to loans secured by owner-occupied residences made from 2003 to 2007. Certain exemptions apply if the borrower has filed for bankruptcy, surrendered the property, or contracted with a person or entity whose primary business is advising people, who have decided to leave their homes, on how to extend the foreclosure process and avoid their contractual obligations.

Maintenance of Vacant Properties
Effective July 8, 2008, anyone who acquires property through foreclosure must maintain the exterior of vacant residential property. Violations of this law include permitting excessive foliage growth that diminishes the value of surrounding properties, failing to take action against trespassers or squatters, failing to take action to prevent mosquitoes from breeding in standing water, or other public nuisances. This law authorizes a governmental entity to impose a civil fine up to $1,000 per day for any violation, as long as the owner has been given notice and an opportunity to remedy the violation. A violator must be given at least 14 days to begin, and 30 days to complete, such remediation before a fine can be assessed.

60-Day Notice to Terminate Tenants
Effective July 8, 2008, a tenant or subtenant in possession of a rental housing unit that has been sold through foreclosure is generally entitled to a 60-day written notice to quit, not just 30 days. However, a borrower who remains on the property after foreclosure may be served a three-day notice to terminate. This law does not affect, among other things, rent-controlled properties with just-cause evictions. Effective on or about September 8, 2008, the lender, trustee, or authorized agent posting a notice of sale must also post and mail a specified notice of a tenant's right to a 60-day eviction notice from the new owner, unless other laws apply. This requirement to notify tenants of their rights applies to loans secured by residential real property where the borrower has a different billing address than the property address.

Non-Profit Downpayment Assistance Programs in Jeopardy!

Take Action Today to Support Downpayment Assistance!

Nehemiah Corporation of America, a national non-profit organization, has helped 290,000 families who would have otherwise been locked out of homeownership due to lack of downpayment funds.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has re-issued a proposed rule which would threaten the opportunity for low to moderate income families to access downpayment assistance by eliminating all private downpayment assistance programs.

Preserve private downpayment assistance programs for families who are credit-worthy, but lack the savings necessary to fulfill their homeownership goals, protect the already fragile economy, improve the current housing market, and save jobs.

Take Action Today to Support Downpayment Assistance!

We have one month to defeat this rule

You MUST speak up now! Assist Nehemiah to help other families experience the pride and financial benefits of homeownership. The proposed rule comment period ends on August 15, 2008.

Click on here to defeat this rule