The Mercury News
Paying off a mortgage might sound like an ambitious plan, especially for those who have recently refinanced into a 30-year term. But it’s still smart for homeowners to give some serious thought as to how they’ll pay off their loan; if not in 2012, then sometime.
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http://www.mercurynews.com/real-estate/ci_19731356
Congress will decide this week whether to reinstate the limit on government-backed home loans in high-cost areas to $729,750.
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/15/BUIQ1LV1P3.DTL
Recent home buyers are staying well within their means with notably higher incomes and modestly higher down payments than buyers in the previous year due to the restrictive mortgage credit environment, despite historically favorable housing affordability conditions, according to 2011 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®’ Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.
The share of first-time buyers declined to 37 percent in 2011 compared with 50 percent in the 2010 study. The study shows the median age of first-time buyers was 31, and the median income was $62,400, up from $59,900 in the 2010 study. The typical first-time buyer purchased a 1,570 square foot home costing $155,000; the estimated median monthly mortgage principal and interest payment was $794.
The typical repeat buyer was 53 years old and earned $96,600, notably higher than the $87,000 median reported in the 2010 profile. Repeat buyers purchased a median 2,100 square foot home costing $219,500, with an estimated median payment of $1,006.
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Mortgage rates are near historical lows, but the rates lenders are quoting aren’t as eye-popping as those seen in the news.
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http://bit.ly/tSOoGE
Strategic default has become an urgent and costly problem for lenders. University of Chicago Booth School of Business studies indicate that roughly 35 percent of mortgage defaults are strategic, and FICO estimates this makes strategic defaults more than a $20 billion problem annually.
FICO Labs researchers announced earlier this year that they had developed a method for predicting which borrowers are at greatest risk of strategic default, focusing especially on the six million U.S. homeowners with current-loan-to-value ratios of 120 or higher, making them twice as likely to consider defaulting on their mortgage. FICO’s strategic default prediction algorithms are now being employed by four of the 10 largest U.S. mortgage servicers. FICO estimates the collective benefit of its solution for these servicers could reach $2 billion in the first year.
Additional information on FICO’s strategic default research can be found in the white paper “Predicting Strategic Default,” available for free at www.fico.com/Insights.
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