Mortgage Delinquencies Continue Decline

The Mortgage Corner

Mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures continue to decline. According to Lender Processing Services (LPS), 6.08 percent of mortgages were delinquent in May, down from 6.21 percent in April, while 3.05 percent of mortgages were in the foreclosure process, down from 4.12 percent in May 2012.

This was the largest drop in delinquencies in 11 years, and gives a total of 9.13 percent delinquent or in foreclosure. It breaks down as:
• 1,708,000 properties that are 30 or more days, and less than 90 days past due, but not in foreclosure.
• 1,335,000 properties that are 90 or more days delinquent, but not in foreclosure.
• 1,525,000 loans in foreclosure process.

Graph: Calculated Risk

Delinquencies are down more than 15 percent since the end of December 2012, coming in at 6.08 percent for the month. As LPS Applied Analytics Senior Vice President Herb Blecher explained, much of this improvement is supported by the fact that new problem loan are approaching the pre-crisis average.

“Though they are still approximately 1.4 times what they were, on average, during the 1995 to 2005 period, delinquencies have come down significantly from their January 2010 peak,” Blecher said. “In large part, this is due to the continuing decline in new problem loans -- as fewer problem loans are coming into the system, the existing inventories are working their way through the pipeline. New problem loan rates are now at just 0.73 percent, which is right about on par with the annual averages during 2005 preceding.

It has to be why consumer spending is in effect soaring. Consumers were out in force in May as consumer credit rose a huge $19.6 billion. Revolving credit jumped $6.6 billion for the largest gain since May last year and the second largest of the recovery. The gain points to a jump in credit card use which, if extended, would be a big plus for retailers. It hasn’t increased at all for most of the year, until now.

Graph: Econoday

Non-revolving credit also jumped in the month, up $13.0 billion for yet another outsized gain that reflects both strong car sales but also gains in the student loan component that are tied in part to ongoing government acquisitions of student loans from private lenders, acquisitions that do not necessary reflect current student borrowing.

So the wealth effect from more jobs and rising housing prices seems to be taking hold. That is why delinquencies have been declining, in the main. This is while the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showing some 3.828 million new job openings in June, and 4.4 million new jobs created.

Graph: Econoday

Both hires and separations are oscillating upward with hires running a little higher than separations. In May, there were 4.441 million hires versus 4.395 million the month before. There were 4.323 million total separations in the month of May-slightly up from 4.287 million in April. The separations rate was 3.2 percent. Total separations include quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations.

Harlan Green © 2013

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: www.twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Higher Home Prices Driving Construction

The Mortgage Corner

CoreLogic just reported home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased 10.2 percent on a year-over-year basis in February 2013 over February 2012. And it is boosting construction, as for sale inventories are barely increasing in the new selling season. This price change represents the biggest year-over-year increase since March 2006 and the 12th consecutive monthly increase in home prices nationally.

Graph: Calculated Risk

“The rebound in prices is heavily driven by western states. Eight of the top ten highest appreciating large markets are in California, with Phoenix and Las Vegas rounding out the list,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.

And the Department of Commerce U.S. Census Bureau announced that construction spending during February 2013 rose 1.2 percent above the revised January estimate of $874.8 billion, and is 7.9 percent above the February 2012 estimate of $820.7 billion.

Graph: Calculated Risk

This is huge, and will boost employment and Gross Domestic Product growth. Though private residential spending is 55 percent below the peak in early 2006 at the height of the housing bubble, it is up 36 percent from the post-bubble low. Non-residential spending is 25 percent below the peak in January 2008, and up about 37 percent from the recent low, said Calculated Risk.

Meanwhile housing inventories have increased 6.5 percent through April 1 (red line in graph), reports Department of Numbers, a housing tracking service, though not enough to prevent housing prices from soaring. For 2011 and 2012, inventory only increased about 5 percent at the peak and then declined for the remainder of the year.

Graph: Calculated Risk

Let us hope this continues as the so-called shadow inventory of homes in default continue to shrink, thus increasing the housing supply available for sale. According to Lender Processing Services (LPS), the inventory of homes in default decreased in February compared to January and declined about 6.5 percent year-over-year. Also the percent of loans in the foreclosure process declined further in February and were down significantly over the last year.

LPS also reported the U.S. mortgage delinquency rate (loans 30 or more days past due, but not in foreclosure) decreased to 6.80 percent from 7.03 percent in January. Note: the normal rate for delinquencies is around 4.5 to 5 percent, as we’ve said in past columns.

Construction employment is coming back, in other words. The construction industry employed some 7.5 million workers in 2006, whereas it is now 5.8 million, according to the Associated General Contractors of America. So we know it will contribute significantly to the 3 million shortfall in payroll jobs still to be made up this year and next to bring us back to normal employment levels as housing and the real estate market in general continue to recover.

Harlan Green © 2013

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: www.twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Home Sales Surging

The Mortgage Corner

Total existing home sales are accelerating, and prices are rising along with declining inventories. Sales that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, rose 5.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.04 million in November from a downwardly revised 4.76 million in October. They are 14.5 percent higher than the 4.40 million-unit pace in November 2011. Sales are at the highest level since November 2009 when the annual pace spiked at 5.44 million.

NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said there is healthy market demand. "Momentum continues to build in the housing market from growing jobs and a bursting out of household formation," he said. "With lower rental vacancy rates and rising rents, combined with still historically favorable affordability conditions, more people are buying homes. Areas impacted by Hurricane Sandy show storm-related disruptions but overall activity in the Northeast is up, offset by gains in unaffected areas."

Graph: Calculated Risk

The problem now is inventory, as months of supply have been falling as lenders work off their shadow inventory of defaulted properties. Supply fell sharply to 4.8 months at the current sales rate from 5.3 months in October which was already a multi-year low. The number of existing homes on the market, at 2.03 million, is the lowest since 2001.The good news is that it is boosting home prices.

The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $180,600 in November, up 10.1 percent from November 2011. This is the ninth consecutive monthly year-over-year price gain, which last occurred from September 2005 to May 2006.

October FHFA home prices, a better measure of affordable homes with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac conforming loans were up a better than expected 0.5 percent nationally after remaining virtually unchanged in September. On the year, the index was up 5.6 percent after increasing 4.1 percent the month before.

Graph: Econoday

Distressed homes - foreclosures and short sales sold at deep discounts - accounted for 22 percent of November sales (12 percent were foreclosures and 10 percent were short sales), down from 24 percent in October and 29 percent in November 2011. Foreclosures sold for an average discount of 20 percent below market value in November, while short sales were discounted 16 percent.

Graph: Econoday

LPS reports that delinquencies continue to decline. The total delinquency rate has fallen to 7.03 percent from the peak in July 2010 of 10.57 percent. A normal rate is probably in the 4 to 5 percent range, so there is a long ways to go. The in-foreclosure rate was at 4.08 percent. There are still a large number of loans in this category (about 1.96 million).

"The market share of distressed property sales will fall into the teens next year based on a diminishing number of seriously delinquent mortgages," said the NAR’s Yun.

Well, it does look like 2013 will fulfill predictions that housing will be in full recovery. The Fed has said it will hold interest rates at record lows through 2015, so what more could prospective home buyers wish for? Maybe a few more new homes under construction.

Harlan Green © 2012

Fewer Foreclosures Boost Housing Prices

The Mortgage Corner

Calculated Risk just reported that Lender Processing Services (LPS) released their Mortgage Monitor report for July with some good news. According to LPS, 7.03 percent of mortgages were delinquent in July, down from 7.14 percent in June, and down from 7.80 percent in July 2011.

Graph: Calculated Risk

LPS reports that 4.08 percent of mortgages were in the foreclosure process, down slightly from 4.09 percent in June, and down slightly from 4.11 percent in July 2011.
This gives a total of 11.12 percent delinquent or in foreclosure. It breaks down as:
• 1,960,000 loans less than 90 days delinquent.
• 1,560,000 loans 90+ days delinquent.
• 2,042,000 loans in foreclosure process.

“Nationally, 18 percent of borrowers who are current on their loan payments are ‘underwater’ (owing more on the mortgage than the home’s current market value),” continued Calculated Risk from a Herb Blecher report, “ranging from a low of 0.4 percent in Wyoming to nearly 55 percent in Nevada. As negative equity increases, we see corresponding increases in the number of new problem loans. In Nevada and Florida, two of the states with the highest percentage of underwater borrowers, more than three percent of borrowers who were up to date on their payments are 60 or more days delinquent six months later. This suggests that further home price declines – should they occur – could jeopardize recent improvements.”

Graph: Calculated Risk

But we are seeing that real estate prices are beginning to climb in those same states that gained, then lost the most equity during the bubble and consequent bust. “Home prices gained in the second quarter,” says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices. “In this month’s report all three composites and all 20 cities improved both in June and through the entire second quarter of 2012. All 20 cities and both monthly Composites rose for the second consecutive month. It would have been a third consecutive month had we not seen home prices fall in Detroit back in April."

Graph: Calculated Risk

And Housing Wire reports that “a sustained uptick in home prices in more metros caused the number of improving housing markets across the nation to rise to 99 in September from 80 the previous month, according to the National Association of Home Builders and First American Home Price Index.

This is while there are already principal reductions happening for the non-Fannie and Freddie home loans. Billions worth of subprime mortgages once handled by Saxon Mortgage Services received more principal write downs since Ocwen Financial Corp. took over the portfolio.

Ocwen, now the largest subprime servicer in the U.S., completed its October 2011 acquisition of Saxon from Morgan Stanley in April 2012.More than $22 billion in mortgages transferred through the deal.

Just 11 percent of all modifications done on these loans included a principal reduction as of May. But in the three months since, Ocwen wrote down principal on 56 percent of modifications on Saxon loans, according to Laurie Goodman, chief analyst at Amherst Securities.

So now we are waiting for implementation of the recent National Mortgage Settlement Act that Wells Fargo, Citibank, Bank of America, Ally, and JPMorgan Chase agreed to. Among other things, it appropriates $25 billion to both settle borrowers’ claims of fraudulent foreclosure practices, but also help homeowners needing loan modifications now, including first and second lien principal reduction that aren’t Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac insured.  (Those mortgages are covered by the HARP loan modification program).  The servicers are required to work off up to $17 billion in principal reduction loan modifications and other forms of loss mitigation nationwide. Eligible borrowers will by contacted by the Servicers and will receive letters offering principal reductions or other modifications starting in June 2012.  This modification process will continue for approximately 3 years.

For loan modifications and refinance options, borrowers may be contacted directly by one of the five participating mortgage servicers. Keeping in mind the timeline above, you may contact the banks directly if you need additional information:

• Ally/GMAC: 800-766-4622
• Bank of America: 877-488-7814 (Available M-F  7am - 9pm CT and Saturdays  8am CT - 5pm CT
• Citi: 866-272-4749
• JPMorgan Chase: 866-372-6901
• Wells Fargo: 800-288-3212 (Available M-F 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CST)

Harlan Green © 2012

Don’t Blame Fannie and Freddie…

The Mortgage Corner

Please don’t blame Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, guarantors of most of the housing market’s conventional mortgages and reason the housing market continues to function at all, for the housing bust. The bust was caused by the oversupply of housing built during the bubble, and aggravated by almost all commercial banks and hedge funds cooking up every kind of ‘liar’ loan they could think of to sell to Wall Street securitizers—including to themselves.

Sure, Fannie/Freddie had to be taken over by the federal government and are being subsidized with approximately $167 billion to date, but that is because banks and other commercial lenders then withdrew from financing the housing market, leaving government to clean up the mess. So the government subsidy is a very cheap price to pay to keep housing from collapsing completely.

Credit was too cheap in early 2000, as Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s Federal Reserve kept short term interest rates below the inflation rate to pay for the Bush tax cuts and wars. I.e., when short term interest rates were 1-2 percent and inflation in the 3 percent range at the time, it was borrowers who actually profited since inflation deflated the value of the debt. This meant it was interest free money!

Economists have estimated that below inflation interest rates were probably also responsible for the double digit housing price rises during the height of the bubble. Don’t take my word for it. Almost everyone, including the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission majority, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and virtually all academics, have rejected the argument of conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute that it was federal affordable housing policies designed to make housing available to a broader public, that created so many high risk loans.

Fannie and Freddie created and have always maintained the gold standard of mortgage qualification standards, with the highest income, credit, and ability to pay requirements. As a mortgage banker/broker for 30 years, I have never originated or underwritten a conforming mortgage that didn’t meet those standards.

So why do conservatives hate Fannie and Freddie so much? Because of their ties to the Democratic Party, mainly. As Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner detail in their book, Reckless Endangerment, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac grew hugely under Democratic Administrations eager to encourage more affordable housing. And they did buy subprime mortgages from Countrywide Financial that were not underwritten to their conforming underwriting standards, thus fattening their portfolios in a bid to play catchup to the issuers of so-called ‘private label’ mortgages. But the subprime purchases were a drop in the bucket; just $60.8 billion for Freddie Mac, according to David Min of the Center for American Progress, with borrowers who had FICO scores under 620, a common definition of subprime mortgages.

In fact, current delinquency and foreclosure rates of Fannie and Freddie, guarantors of Agency Prime mortgages, are close to the historical norm. Fannie Mae reported that the serious delinquency rate decreased to 4.27 percent in March, close to the long term historical average. This is down from 5.47 percent in March 2010. The Fannie Mae serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 5.59 percent. Freddie Mac reported that the serious delinquency rate decreased to 3.57 percent in April. (Note: Fannie reports a month behind Freddie). This is down from 4.06 percent in March 2010 and Freddie's serious delinquency rate also peaked in February 2010 at 4.20 percent.

And their foreclosure rates are approaching the 1 percent historical average of all conventional loans. The Calculated Risk graph shows the latest foreclosure rates for all mortgage categories. It may not be surprising that Option ARMs (those with negative amortization that caused the principal loan balance to increased substantially in many cases) have the highest foreclosure rates, even above the Subprimes.

Sadly, Lender Processing Services, Inc. (NYSE: LPS) Mortgage Monitor report shows the number of mortgages 90 or more days delinquent, combined with the foreclosure inventory at the end of June, still totaled 4,073,00 down very slightly from its May 4,084,557 total. It looks like without additional government help, which doesn’t seem likely (see Renae Merle at Washington Post: Obama administration not planning another big housing program), most of those units will be added to the existing home inventory over the next 2 years.

So why doesn’t the Obama Administration spend more of the reportedly $11 billion set aside for the HAMP loan modification program? It may be because Timothy Geithner’s Treasury Department isn’t requiring banks holding the delinquent loans to get them off their books more quickly. And that means not much upside potential for housing prices until when, maybe 2014?

Harlan Green © 2011