Real Estate News & Updates from the Monadnock Region
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What’s up With Fannie Mae? (Federal National Mortgage Corporation)

February 1st, 2013 | Posted by Dick Thackston in Mortgage News | News | Real Estate News - (0 Comments)

I had the opportunity to hear former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush speak at the annual Five Star REO Conference in Texas late last summer. (REO is an acronym for Real Estate Owned which is what foreclosures and bank owned properties are technically called.) Both Presidents Bush and Clinton spoke about the importance of housing to our economy and to the American way of life. Clinton spoke in relatively more detail about the future of Fannie Mae. He indicated that while the exact future of Fannie Mae is by no means clear, the service that it provides to both lenders and the economy in providing liquidity to home mortgage lenders is crucial to maintaining a vibrant and relatively free housing market in the United States.

In the last several years there has been much criticism of Fannie Mae, (and its sister company Freddie Mac),  for having provided too much liquidity to lenders – under pressure from Congress – and the liability it has created for the United States Government. There can be little question that Fannie Mae worked as planned and backed the entire United States housing market, and as bad as things have been the last several years in housing, the situation would have been much worse had Fannie Mae not existed.

In the fall of 2008 the United States Treasury placed both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under conservatorship and liquidated the Preferred Stockholder’s equity position. The majority of Preferred Stockholders were banks and pension funds, thus spreading the damage. Common stock in both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remained listed and traded on the New York Stock Exchange until mid 2010 when the stocks were delisted. Both stocks continue to be traded over the counter but have lost substantial value. Conservatorship does not mean the Treasury owns Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, ownership is still vested in the common stock shareholders, however conservatorship does mean that the common stock shareholders have lost all control over the operations of these institutions; a situation that will remain until such time as the conservator, the United States Treasury, determines the best course of action to take with these institutions. At this time the ultimate status of Fannie Mae is indeterminate. Congress has considered a number of actions to take but has not reached any agreement and has no legislation pending to resolve Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac’s future. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remain ill-liquid and under government conservatorship at this time, bankruptcy, revocation of charter and or break-up into smaller entities have all been considered.

 

By Dick Thackston CRB, ABR, ABRM,BrokerNH, MA & VT

About Fannie Mae

Fannie Mae is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) chartered by Congress with a mission to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the U.S.housing and mortgage markets.

Fannie Mae operates in the U.S.secondary mortgage market. Rather than making home loans directly to consumers, we work with mortgage bankers, brokers and other primary mortgage market partners to help ensure they have funds to lend to home buyers at affordable rates. We fund our mortgage investments primarily by issuing debt securities in the domestic and international capital markets.

Fannie Mae was established as a federal agency in 1938, and was chartered by Congress in 1968 as a private shareholder-owned company. On September 6, 2008, Director James Lockhart of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) appointed FHFA as conservator of Fannie Mae. In September 2008, we also entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Treasury that was most recently amended in December 2009. Under the agreement, Treasury will provide us with capital as needed to correct any net worth deficiencies that we record in any quarter through 2012. The agreement is intended to ensure that we are able to continue providing liquidity and stability to the housing and mortgage markets.

Fannie Mae has three lines of business – Single-Family, Multifamily and Capital Markets – that provide services and products to lenders and a broad range of housing partners. Together, these businesses contribute to the company’s chartered mission to increase the amount of funds available in order to make homeownership and rental housing more available and affordable.

 

Early History
The FHA Administrator chartered Fannie Mae on February 10, 1938. The impetus for creation of Fannie Mae was twofold: the national commitment to housing and the inability or unwillingness of private lenders to ensure a reliable supply of mortgage credit throughout the country. The primary purpose of Fannie Mae was to purchase, hold, or sell FHA-insured mortgage loans that had been originated by private lenders. After World War II, Fannie Mae’s authority was expanded to include VA-guaranteed home mortgages.

1954 Charter Act
The Charter Act of 1954 provided the basic framework under which Fannie Mae operates today but did not remove it from direct federal control. The act removed government backing for borrowings used to fund Fannie Mae’s secondary market operations. It stipulated that Fannie Mae be exempt from all local taxes except property taxes, and provided for the Federal Reserve Banks to perform various services for Fannie Mae. The 1954 Charter Act also defined the path by which Fannie Mae’s secondary market operations would be transferred to the private sector: proceeds from gradual sales of common stock were to be used to retire Treasury-owned preferred stock in Fannie Mae.

1968 Charter Act
The 1968 Charter Act split Fannie Mae into two parts: Ginnie Mae and a reconstituted Fannie Mae. Ginnie Mae would continue as a federal agency and be responsible for the then-existing special assistance programs, and Fannie Mae would be transformed into a “government-sponsored private corporation” responsible for the self-supporting secondary market operations. The reconstituted Fannie Mae was to be stockholder-owned and managed. Fannie Mae retired the last of its government stock on September 30, 1968, and transformation to a government-sponsored private corporation was completed in 1970.

The 1968 Act provided the authority to issue Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS).

The Act also established a regulatory structure to ensure Fannie Mae’s adherence to its public purpose. It provided for continuing HUD oversight of Fannie Mae, granting “general regulatory power … to insure that the purposes of this Title are accomplished.”

Emergency Home Finance Act of 1970
The Emergency Home Finance Act of 1970 created Freddie Mac and authorized it to create a secondary market for conventional mortgages. Parallel authority and limitations to deal in conventional mortgages were given to Fannie Mae.

To alleviate credit concerns raised by acquisition of conventional mortgages (that lack federal backing), several eligibility restrictions and/or risk sharing requirements were imposed on the mortgages Fannie Mae could buy.

The new law also required the HUD Secretary to provide prior approval of Fannie Mae’s “purchase” or “dealing in” conventional mortgages (later interpreted by HUD regulations in 1995 to require specific approval of new and different conventional “programs”).

Secondary Mortgage Market Enhancement Act of 1984
The Secondary Mortgage Market Enhancement Act of 1984 (“SMMEA”) clarified and modified several of HUD’s regulatory powers over Fannie Mae. It required HUD to respond within 45 days to any request for new program approval made by Fannie Mae under the Charter Act (with a 15-day extension permitted) and authorized Fannie Mae to purchase and deal in subordinate lien mortgages.

Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989
The Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (“FIRREA”) of 1989 made regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac consistent. Until 1989, Freddie Mac was owned by the Federal Home Loan Bank System and its member thrifts and governed by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (later reorganized into the Office of Thrift Supervision). FIRREA severed Freddie Mac’s ties to the Federal Home Loan Bank System, created an 18-member board of directors to run Freddie Mac, and subjected it to HUD oversight.

Also, the GAO and Treasury were instructed to conduct studies of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks. These studies laid the foundation for comprehensive regulatory modernization for both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 1992.

The Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992
The Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act (“FHEFSSA”) of 1992 modernized the regulatory oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It created the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (“OFHEO”) as a new regulatory office within HUD with the responsibility to “ensure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are adequately capitalized and operating safely.” OFHEO is funded by assessments on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and is authorized to act without HUD oversight on a range of regulatory issues enumerated in the statute. FHEFSSA established risk-based and minimum capital standards for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And, it established HUD-imposed housing goals for financing of affordable housing and housing in central cities and other rural and underserved areas.

The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008
The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (‘HERA’) strengthened governmental oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It established the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which replaced OFHEO and HUD as Fannie Mae’s safety and soundness and mission regulator. Among other things, FHFA has broad authority to require Fannie Mae to hold capital above statutory minimum levels, regulate the size and content of our portfolio, and approve new mortgage products.

 

http://www.fanniemae.com/about/index.html

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A Little More About – Royal Barry Wills and the Great American Cape

July 24th, 2012 | Posted by Dick Thackston in News - (0 Comments)

The architecture and style of Royal Barry Wills and its impact on real estate and housing trends in modern America is with out peer. Wills’ unique use of traditional designs and signature use of specific design elements merits our special attention.

The Cape style home traditionally is thought of as being symmetrical in design. This is particularly true of the front elevation which is expected to have a Front Door centered on the elevation balanced by two equal sized windows equally spaced on either side of the Front Door. This is the definition for most students of Cape Design of a “Full Cape”. Capes with windows only on one side of the Front Door are considered “Half Capes” and Cape style homes with un-equal numbers windows on either side of the Front Door are considered “Three Quarter Capes”.

The evolution of these three design styles, Full, Three Quarter & Half Capes, makes perfect sense when you understand the configuration of life styles and economics in New England as the region developed in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth Centuries. As settlers moved into a region and developed homesteads it was important to establish shelter relatively quickly so Half Capes were often how home homesteads were started. While the smaller size seems intuitively to provide for quicker construction because there would be less to build, and it is, one of the major drivers in choosing a Half Cape as an initial Homestead was the cellar. Cellars were integral parts to the homestead as the provided for a secure cool comparatively dry place to store food. New England’s soil is as a rule rocky so digging a cellar hole by had can be quite time consumptive and potentially hold up a building project to a dangerous extent – remember these people were living in tents or lean-to’s until the house was finished. Extensions and additional rooms could be added later. It is very common to go into the cellar of early capes in the Monadnock Region of New Hampshire, Western Massachusetts and Vermont and see that the basement and framing of the home reflect the fact that the home was built one side then first and balanced out later.

Another feature typical of early Cape style homes is the large central chimney. Commonly these were built right behind the front door and offered one or more fireplaces in each if the first floor rooms of the home. The side with the larger Kitchen Fireplace, which often has a baking oven built in it, normally is the side of the home that was built first in the early Capes. As heating technology improved at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries new construction moved away from large central chimneys in favor of smaller single flue chimneys inside the home’s walls to facilitate the use of interior stoves for both heating and cooking. At the same time many Capes with large interior multi-flued chimneys where either being built down into the Rumford style or, more often than not, simply blocked off to accommodate a stove pipe. (One of the most fascinating parts of early Capes is the “Indian Room” that is formed by the backs of all the fireplaces and generally accessed by a hidden panel, generally only a few square feet in area. It is less likely that these spaces were used to hide from Indians than to hide and store food.)

Progressive spacing of the clapboards on an early Cape was quite common as well. The method of spacing the clapboards nearest the ground closer together and then ever father apart also had very practical origins in the early Cape Style home. Putting the clapboards closer together at the bottom of the wall accomplished two purposes it provided slightly more insulation against the snow but more importantly it provided ever so slightly a pitch to the wall that directed snow and ice to run off away from the homes sills and preserve them in many cases for two hundred or more years. Many novice owners of old Capes have changed the original design of exterior walls and found that their sills that had been sound for centuries rotted out in a few years.

Royal Barry Wills used all these traditional aspects of the Cape in his designs and each of them are considered part of his signature: use of graduated spacing of clapboards, large central chimneys, and connecting and balancing half Capes, three quarter Capes and Full Capes together to create lovely practical and well designed homes in the mid-Twentieth Century.

By Dick Thackston CRB, ABR, ABRM

Broker NH, MA & VT

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Royal Barry Wills and the Great American Cape

July 16th, 2012 | Posted by Dick Thackston in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

The architecture and style of Royal Barry Wills and its impact on real estate and housing trends in modern America is with out peer. Wills career and impact spanned the mid section of the twentieth Century starting in the 1920’s boom years and running into the early 1960’s. Housing trend varied widely through-out that time period due to economic and social changes all too numerous to mention through out those years but the clean simple lines of Wills designs and his focus on the traditional Cape style home and its flexible and elegant design are both consistent and unique.

Cape style home take their name from the Cape Code region ofMassachusettswhere these dynamic little homes first appeared as such in our country. Capes first appeared in the seventeenth century and where vaguely patterned after English farm houses but with several modification that make the quite different. Capes were and are built with low profiles which early settlers learned by experience was the best way to reduce wind damage in Cape Cod’s windy weather, much lower than a traditional English farm house. Capes while typically built with a post and beam construction like an English Farm House but were built with the timbers inside protective clapboard siding rather than with exposed beams and wattle & dub or stucco walls as in England. This is due again primarily as a result of the significant weather differences between New England and Old England. Early settlers realized immediately that their homes would both last longer and be much warmer in winter if they enclosed the structure in subsiding and clapboard. (It is interesting to note how practical early builders of Capes were in New England. Older Capes subsiding is typically straight cut lumber where you can see that the tree was not squared up but simply sliced and laid in courses reversing the direction with each board so they fit together.) The clapboard exteriors provide greater insulation than the solid stucco walls of English farm houses because of the dead air space between the exterior clapboard and subsiding and the interior split lath and plaster. (Split-lath is typically made from a sheet of walnut that is nailed and split into a “Z” pattern with plaster laid over it.) The bottom of interior walls typically had wainscoting installed to provide yet one more layer of insulation at the bottom against the often heavy winter snows.

Royal Barry Wills began his architectural career in Boston providing advice and writing newspaper columns in the Boston papers. Wills saw the efficiency and flexibility of the Cape design at that time which had long fallen out of favor with Americans as the style was viewed as an “old fashioned farmer’s house”. Wills changed this by completing designs that incorporated modern features and designs that were both modern and creative. His signature on a design was typically a large center chimney that raises the eye up and to the center of what might otherwise appear to be a rather low lying building. By adding box dormers to the front he was able to visually crenelate and break the roof line while adding light to the interior second floor rooms and by adding shed dormers to the back he was able to use the second floor space in a much more comfortable way for modern living and furniture. Hyphenating additions and garages with breezeways was another typical design technique that we take for granted today that was a Wills creation as well as his use of telescoping designs that used one or two apparent additions of increasingly smaller capes across the front that allowed the building to add space while not adding to proportions or  building mass.

 

The great American Cape as we know it today is largely a gift of Royal Barry Wills efforts to create visually appealing housing designs that are both creative and inexpensive to build that allow well proportioned interior space that draw upon traditional American home designs.

By Dick Thackston CRB, ABR, ABRM

Broker NH, MA & VT

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Reality or Fear Based View of Real Estate in the US The Choice is Yours.

January 26th, 2012 | Posted by Dick Thackston in Buying Tips | Mortgage News | News | Real Estate News - (0 Comments)

Prior to 2007-2008 most of the American public and most mortgage lenders believed, and often would state in conversation, “real estate never goes down!” Since that time frame buyers and sellers have gone to the other extreme and now the common wisdom is “real estate will never go back up.”

Well never is a long time. Both perspectives are wrong.

For the last several years we have been pummeled for a seemingly continuous stream of negative events: tidal wave and earthquake in Japan, un-employment over 10%, European Debit crisis looms as Greece nears default on its debt, (The last one just kills me: the entire GDP of Greece in 2010 – $310 Billion +/- – is approximately the same as the State of Maryland in 2010 – $300 Billion +/-. Do we actually believe if the State of Maryland defaulted there would be a worldwide financial crisis?), and each of the events has run a shock wave through people’s emotions which does affect their willingness to make the long term commitment to home ownership. It’s not reality! Fear sells newspapers, magazines and broadcasts. Fear does not ever produce the best results or good decisions.

Truth be told, the down turn in housing started in the third quarter of 2005. In June of 2005 the Fed bumped rates up in order to stimulate “a soft landing in housing” the curves between housing units sold and housing prices began to diverge at that point with house prices continuing to increase for another two years, while units of sales began to decline at an ever increasing rate. By the time the reality hit it was already too late. That being said, let’s look at the sunnier side of the situation. All of this is clearly tracked by something called the Housing Affordability Index published by the National Association of REALTORS.

The Housing Affordability Index has two basic components: average mortgage rates and average house prices which is then compared to the average household income. The higher the number, the easier it is for people to buy homes, and the lower the number, the harder it is for people to own homes. The number is designed to indicate how affordable the median home is to the median income family in the United States. An index of 100 means that the median income household has exactly enough income to afford the median income home; when the index is greater than 100 then the median household has more than they need to purchase the median home and when it’s below 100 then they don’t have enough. (When I started selling homes in Pasadena, Maryland in 1982, the Housing Affordability Index was well below 100 due to very high interest rates, in the 13-15% range). Today due to all the price declines and interest rates being at historic lows, the Housing Affordability Index has soared to a record high number well over 100.

So what’s the point? The point is that a balanced perspective and a positive outlook on life are the key to making good decisions in housing as well as in other areas of ones life. Scientific studies have shown, (See Dr. David Lykken’s work), that your happiness set point is about 50% genetic and the rest is up to you. There can be little or no doubt that the homes that are being purchased today at historically low interest rates and the lowest prices in a decade or more will fuel the American economic powerhouse in a few years – so be positive, keep your perspective and never say “never”.

By Dick Thackston CRB, ABR, ABRM

Broker NH, MA & VT

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2012 is a Buyers Market! Six Tips to Keep in Mind if You are Using a Buyer Broker:

January 23rd, 2012 | Posted by Dick Thackston in Buying Tips | Real Estate News - (0 Comments)

So, 2012 looks like maybe hone buyers will be back out seriously looking at homes which means the whole issue of buyer brokerage will soon be among us again with untrained agents trying to represent buyers again. Thinking about that, I have created a six point template that every buyer thinking about getting a buyer broker should consider. Buyer brokerage is not for every buyer and/or every agent, and I believe all of these points should be considered before any buyer agency agreement is signed. Be sure the arrangement works for you!

POINT# 1: Value: Will hiring a buyer broker actually create value for either party? Do you as the buyer actually plan to guarantee a buyer brokers compensation? Do really plan to buy a home through this buyer broker and only this buyer broker or do you plan to drift into open houses and call on ads that you see in the paper, or on line, or in homes magazines, directly to whoever ran the ad? As a buyer broker do you actually believe that this buyer will actually follow through with their obligations to you? As a buyer broker will you actually follow through with your obligations to this buyer or are you playing the game of you pretend that they will honor the contract and they pretend you’re actually doing any work for them when in reality you’re both fibbing?

POINT# 2: Effectiveness: It is very important that both the buyer and the agent view this as an effective relationship and both understand its boundaries. Do you as a buyer actually believe that you will get better representation, (any representation), by contracting with a buyer’s broker? Do you think you’d get a better price and terms than if you dealt with the listing agent directly? As a Buyer Broker do you actually think you’re going to make more money than if you just sold the house as a Facilitator/Sub-Agent/Transactional Agent? As an agent are you prepared for the long term liability and lawsuits or is that “my broker’s problem”.

POINT# 3: Contact & Skills: Do you as a buyer actually think this buyer broker knows any more than you do? Have they even looked at the listing on line? Will they put you on a search that is simply an automated feed from the MLS or will they call you and track properties that you have expressed an interest in? If they are tracking properties for you how will they do so? Will they develop a spread sheet that shows the properties you’re evaluating with notes and comparisons or will they just “remember what’s important”? When and how will you be in touch with each other?

POINT# 4: Best Properties: Will the buyer broker be committed to getting the buyer in front of the best properties? Will they put the client’s interest in front of their own? Will the buyer be prepared to act when good properties are available? Is the buyer prepared to provide confidential financial information to the buyer broker and get pre-qualified by the buyer broker’s chosen lender?

POINT# 5 Long Term Relationship: Is this relationship going any place long term? Can the buyer and the agent see themselves working together long term? Will the buyer be sending referrals to the buyer’s broker? Will the agent be following up on post closing issues, i.e. errors in the Seller’s Disclosures, Mechanic’s Liens, boundary disputes etc.?

POINT# 6 Timeliness: Is this the right time for the buyer to higher a buyer’s broker or have they already entered into an agreement to purchase and now should really be hiring a lawyer to fix it or litigate it? Does the agent really feel they are entitled to a fee or are they just “trying to make a quick buck”?

By Dick Thackston CRB, ABR, ABRM

Broker NH, MA & VT

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Is the Ice Breaking for Home Builders?

January 20th, 2012 | Posted by Dick Thackston in News | Real Estate News - (0 Comments)

The National Association of Home Builders maintains indices that measure conditions for the home building industry. There are three basic measures that the NAHB looks at as measure of were the home building industry is at: traffic visiting model homes, current sales conditions and the most subjective of the three expectations for the next six months. When you look at these numbers 50 is the benchmark number anything under 50 is poor any thing over 50 is good.

Conditions have shown improvement over the last four months.

Last month’s traffic visiting model homes increased from 18 to 21; an increase of about 20% and similar to what we have seen in the “re-sale” home market. (Keep in mind its still winter in the northeast and this is not prime home selling season- really very dramatic news!) Last month’s number for current sales conditions moved from 22 to 25 which measures factors such as availability of financing, terms, interest rates and available inventory among other things and expectations for the next six months moved from 26 to 29.

The NAHB also looks at these number by census regions rather than state by state or just the nation in aggregate. The Northeast moved the most from 14 to 23 and the Mid West moved the least from 23 to 24. It’s probably worth noting that the mid-West has been one of the least impacted regions of the country in our now five + year old real estate downturn.

The South is considered the most important number for the nation and the association because it by far the largest region for population and business in the country. The South moved from 25 to 27. The West moved from 16 to 21.

Obviously, our primary/only concern is the Northeast which includes New England, (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island and Maine). Prospects remain positive and cautious on all fronts in the real estate world and the “all clear” is by no means appropriate at this time. These are not great numbers but they are significantly less bad than the numbers of the recent past and may/hopefully reflect an upward trend that will be unfolding over the next several months as weather improves and the situation becomes clearer to all on employment and other investments besides real estate.

By Dick Thackston CRB, ABR, ABRM

Broker NH, MA & VT

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Is Mortgage Lending Getting More Consumer Friendly in 2012?

January 12th, 2012 | Posted by Dick Thackston in Mortgage News | News | Real Estate News - (0 Comments)

By Dick Thackston

I continue to read about mortgage credit terms such as Credit Scores, Down Payment Requirements, and so forth being eased on home purchases. Federal Reserve Senior Loan Officer Survey still reports historically tight standards. Part of the problem from what I’ve seen, is values coming in low on appraisals after the buyer and seller have come to terms, which in my opinion, reflects tightened appraisal standards. (Appraisers don’t want to be held responsible for over valuing properties – as they have been in the past – even though local market conditions support values.) It’s odd because in my experience appraisers who “know local areas” almost always have a clear sense of what is going on in a market; the biggest problem is large un-named government backed lenders that bring appraisers in from 200 miles away that often do not have a sense of the nuances for local markets that even underwriters can pick up from a desk 2000 miles away. Ultimately, sloppy work is sloppy work and it creates a drag on the entire process.

If home prices are stabilizing, as many people feel they are, this will actually be a bigger problem because house prices will no longer “always be lower than last month” and buyers will be bidding up prices which won’t be adequately reflected in comparable sales from a few months earlier. Low appraisals serve to drive prices down and create a self fulfilling cycle of ever lower prices. If appraisers are better able to justify the sellers price this may in fact be a key to breaking the cycle of pain in real estate we have seen.

Lenders have clearly been working to slow the pace of REO properties coming on the market; to be sure there are plenty of lender owned homes available and they still represent the majority of sales in all market despite everyone’s desire to deny the fact; this decline in the speed at which REO properties are coming on the market is likely to be a big part of stabilization. Once there is any perception of stabilization in the market it seems likely to me that many buyers will “pile into the market” and then be confronted with the challenges of getting a new loan – back to the appraisal and underwriting issues. The entire process is likely to be painful but rewarding for those with the constitution to push through: sellers and buyers both.

Re-financing has gone nuts by all reports from our friends in the lending business with home mortgage rates at historical, probably lifetime lows, loan officers actually have trouble keeping up with the volume of business they are processing. The good news here too is that a much lower percentage of these home mortgage re-finances are taking cash out unlike the past re-financing booms, this time the home mortgage re-finances seem to be more focused on actually reducing cash flow burdens on households, where as in the last fifteen years the home mortgage re-finance booms have been more focused on stripping homes of their equity to finance current consumption.

Mortgage lending in 2012 is probably less consumer friendly than in most of the last twenty years in the sense of underwriting standards and appraisal issues, however loans are being made and the process is sufficiently painful so that borrowers seem to really be paying attention to their reasons for going through the process and is getting done in a way that will lead to a healthier housing market in the foreseeable future.

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R.H. Thackston & Company REALTORS with offices in Keene, Bellows Falls and Winchester announced the following personnel updates.

November 29th, 2011 | Posted by Dick Thackston in Real Estate News - (0 Comments)

Keene - R.H. Thackston & Company REALTORS with offices in Keene, Bellows Falls and Winchester announced the following personnel updates.


Dick Thackston, the company’s principal broker, received special recognition from the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS Honor Society. Earlier this year Thackston was made a lifetime member of the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS Honor Society. Every year the New Hampshire Association of REALTORS Honor Society recognizes the REALTORS within individual local REALTOR Boards for their outstanding participation in both civic and REALTOR affairs by using a points system for the various activities that individual members participates in over the course of a year. Thackston was recognized by the Honor Society as the highest number of points earned for any member of the New Hampshire Commercial Investment Board of REALTORS, (NHCIBOR) were he is a primary member. Thackston has been a member of NHCIBOR for several years; this is his first year as NHCIBOR’s high point winner for the Honor Society. Thackston is also a member of the Monadnock Region Board of REALTORS were he has also been recognized for earning the highest points in the past.  Thackston will be serving as Treasurer of the Monadnock Board of REALTORS in 2012 and is a member of the New Hampshire Association of Realtors, the National Association of REALTORS, National Council of Residential Brokers and Real Estate Buyer’s Agents Council. Thackston is an accredited real estate instructor by the New Hampshire Real Estate Commission and a licensed real estate broker in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont.

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Up to Four Million Foreclosures to be Reviewed by Government!

November 3rd, 2011 | Posted by Dick Thackston in Mortgage News | News | Real Estate News - (0 Comments)

By Dick Thackston CRB, ABRM, ABR

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has begun sending out letters to borrowers who have faced foreclosure since 2009. It is estimated that approximately four million borrowers foreclosures may have been mishandled between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010. Federal regulators and most of the nation’s largest home mortgage servicers announced earlier this week.

Cases will be reviewed by Federal Regulators as a result of an agreement established in April of this year in which the nation’s fourteen top mortgage servicers agreed with regulators to hire independent consultants to evaluate foreclosure processes and determine if borrowers had experienced financial injury as a result of errors or abuses by servicers. It will be up to the independent consultants to evaluate cases and determine compensation if any due to borrowers.

The Comptroller of the Currency as well as the Federal Reserve will be sending mails between now and the end of the year to notify potential victims of their rights. A mass media campaign is planned as well to direct borrowers to the website www.IndependentForeclosureReview.com or the toll free number 888.952.9105. All requests for review must be submitted by April 30, 2012.

The mortgage servicers and the government agreed that the servicers would pay all the expenses associated of setting up the program. Under government supervision they have hired eight independent consultants that have designed the program to be at no cost to the borrowers. The consultants have set up the website and call center noted above. The program is designed to encourage borrowers from all lenders to use one portal and there is uniform branding and product design to be clearer in the public mind than a number of different sites would be to the public.

There are several basic patterns that the consultants will be looking at to determine wrongdoing and these include miscalculation of fees, a foreclosure that happened while a borrower was under bankruptcy court protection and the most common one in my experience a foreclosure that was done while a borrower was waiting for a response on a loan modification.

This program is a direct result of last year’s robo signing scandal and the investigations that followed. About a year ago it came to public light that many mortgage servicers were cutting corners on due process when foreclosing on properties and either not properly executing documents or simply faking documents to expedite the large number of foreclosures they had on their hands.

This program is a good solution to an unfortunate situation. Objectively, most of these borrowers were in fact behind and many if not most were ready and willingly left their properties to begin over, however that does justify short cutting the legal protection of property rights built into our system of property ownership over the last thousand years from Common Law to Current Law.

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Homes Sales Reported to Drop 3% Last Month What Does that Mean to Me?

October 24th, 2011 | Posted by Dick Thackston in Buying Tips | Mortgage News | News | Selling Tips - (0 Comments)

By Dick Thackston CRB, ABRM, ABR

The actual answer to the question in our title is very little.

From the street level- were you and I both are as buyers, sellers and REALTORS – mostly what it tells us is it’s not our imagination the people who make up these statistics only give a portion of the story or leave large parts of the story out.

I have absolutely no doubt that Home Sales Dropped 3%! In fact I’m sure of it!

But here’s what I think happened. The majority of sales at this point are in fact bank owned properties and Short Sales. For the last several months a large percentage of REO’s have been tied up either with Title Problems and/or litigation. The stream of buyers in the market while not as large as it once was seems constant at this point. Since early this summer there has been a decline in available REO inventory for these two reasons. Value Conscious Home Buyers have been out looking but have not been able to find satisfactory properties or the properties they have found have been snarled up with Title Problems.

Why, you may ask, did these buyers just not buy regular retail properties on the market from non-REO sources? The simple answer is they are waiting. They are waiting for REO inventory to become available, they know it’s coming and they are VERY PRICE CONCIOUS. The majority of retail home sellers and their agents still have an unrealistic expectation about pricing and many have had their properties on and off the market at the same or very nearly the same price for several years. It’s just not going to happen. Home Buyers in this market have lots of information, most of it good, some of it bad, but it’s more information than any other group of Home Buyers has had in history before making a decision to purchase, and Home Buyers are not betting the market changes anytime soon.

The good news is that as the litigation and Title Problems now seem to be clearing more inventory is coming on the market and lenders have started to embrace the short sale process rather than fight it so Short Sales are becoming more far more viable then they were even a year or so ago. To be sure lenders are not going to leave money on the table or sell for less than current fair market value but the approach they are taking now seems like a good thing for everybody and that doesn’t get picked up in the statistics.

Bottom line is the viability of the inventory is improving and buyers are responding even though we are likely years out from an actual fix in the housing market.

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