Mortgage rates jumped today in Orange County after the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the nationwide unemployment rate dipped in July, surprising some market watchers. Jeff Altman, a partner in WestCal Mortgage Corp. in Orange, said banks are offering 5.62% … Read More

There is no second foreclosure wave coming, says Sam Khater, senior economist, First American CoreLogic. “To say there is a second wave implies the (current) wave has receded,” Khater told me. “I don’t see that the wave has receded.” Khater … Read More

GMAC Inc., the auto lender, may cut its losses and need for capital by sending its mortgage unit Residential Capital, which controls Costa Mesa-based Ditech.com , into bankruptcy, according to Bloomberg , which quotes a report from CreditSights Inc. ResCap, … Read More

Reuters, citing the Mortgage Bankers Association, reports demand for U.S. home loans rose last week as a decline in 30-year fixed mortgage rates fell to a three-week low. The MBA survey found average 30-year mortgage rates fell 0.19 percentage point … Read More

The Treasury Department today released a report showing loan servicers have a mixed record, mostly poor, of helping borrowers under the Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention plan. Bank of America landed on the low end of the scale, helping just 4% … Read More

Roughly 9% of eligible borrowers have received a trial loan modification under the Obama administration’s $75 billion foreclosure prevention plan, the Treasury Department said today. The total is for people at least 60 days late on their mortgages — including … Read More

The ratio of foreclosed properties to all outstanding loans fell in Orange County to 0.4% in June, which likely reflects the strong demand for foreclosures priced under $500,000. In May the ratio was 0.5% and in June ‘08 it was … Read More

Politicians and regulators made some noise this week on mortgage relief. First, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said there are just 200,000 trail loan modifications under way under the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable plan. When it was announced back in … Read More

Foreclosures plummeted in roughly 70% of ZIPs in Orange County in the second quarter vs. a year ago, reports DataQuick. Jack Kyser, founding economist of The Kyser Center for Economic Research in Los Angeles, said one reason foreclosures dropped in … Read More

From the NY Times: Feds Push Mortgage Companies to Modify More Loans The Obama administration, scrambling to get its main housing initiative on track, extracted a pledge from 25 mortgage company executives to improve their efforts to assist borrowers in … Read More