According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, applications were down about 11 percent last week due in part to the holiday and during a week where there was little change in mortgage rates.
Last week, some lenders began taking applications under the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable refinance plan – the program that allows homeowners with good credit to refinance their mortgages up to 105% percent of the currently appraised value. So why wasn’t there a flood of applications? Some homeowners say lenders advised them to wait and apply in a few weeks or months. Others say lenders are asking for large fees.
Some banks had to wait for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to update their loan-origination software. Also, Fannie Mae says borrowers may refinance with any lender they wish. However, if the mortgage is insured by Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp, then MGIC requires the loan to be refinanced with the current lender. These kind of conflicts are slowing down the refinance process.
Valley neighborhoods are facing a double blow to grant funding that they once used to combat blight, promote public safety and revitalize aging areas. Not only are most cities freezing their neighborhood grant budgets, some are looking to narrow the list of eligible improvement projects and, in rare cases, revoking thousands of dollars already promised. more…
Two excellent articles out this month on Lynn Tilton of Patriarch Partners LLC:
(Fortune Magazine) — Lynn Tilton does not look or sound like your typical vulture investor. But that could be because the sometimes provocatively attired (and always outspoken) founder of Patriarch Partners sees the buying and reengineering of broken companies as a calling. “I save companies others throw away,” she says, “bringing light into the gathering darkness. This is why I was put on this earth.” (Okay, then.) more…
(The Arizona Republic) — Sitting in one of her 70 company boardrooms, Lynn Tilton sweeps back her waist-length hair and reads an e-mail from a supporter on Capitol Hill. It’s a coming-out time, of sorts, for the private-equity investor and industrialist whose rescue of companies in financial distress is attracting attention both from politicians and the public. more
Bankruptcy is coming to the food court. And that’s got to make you wonder if the commercial real estate market is a disaster waiting to happen. more…