Pennsylvania Mortgage News
Pennsylvania Mortgage news is updated daily.
Housing Bill Approved
The U.S. Senate, approved H.R. 3221 Saturday on a vote of 72-13. The House of Representatives passed the bill 272-152 on Thursday. President Bush, who had originally threatened to veto the bill, has now promised to sign the legislation. The legislation is designed to help as many as 400,000 borrowers by allowing them to re-finance high-cost adjustable-rate mortgages with 30-year-fixed loans. Under the bill, the Federal Housing Administration is permitted to insure $300 billion in new loans for the massive refinance program.
Mixed MBS Ratings Activity
Higher-than-anticipated rates of delinquency, foreclosure and real estate owned in the underlying collateral relative to credit enhancement levels prompted Moody's Investors Service to lower the ratings on 61 Alt-A issuances. In commercial MBS activity, five classes of Chase Commercial Mortgage Securities Corp. 1998-2 were upgraded by Fitch Ratings due to additional paydown of 20 loans including the largest loan in the deal. Morgan Stanley Capital I Trust 2006-IQ11 saw three classes downgraded by Fitch, reflecting the increase in specially serviced assets since Fitch's last rating action in addition to an increase in Fitch's expected losses on the specially serviced assets.
Jumbo FHA Securitizations Soaring
Just $17 million in Federal Housing Administration-insured jumbo mortgages were securitized in April, the Government National Mortgage Association reported. In May, volume rose to $331 million. This month, $1.5 billion has been securitized.
SunTrust Closes HEL Broker Unit
SunTrust Mortgage Inc. advised mortgage brokers that it has stopped accepting new business for its Flex Equity Line program and other equity products. "We are constantly reviewing our product and business mix to ensure it is competitive for clients and consistent with our responsibilities to shareholders," a SunTrust spokesman told MortgageDaily.com in a statement. "We are fine tuning some aspects of our efforts by eliminating equity lending through the wholesale line of business at SunTrust Mortgage."
Lenders One Activity Falls
Lenders One Mortgage Cooperative originated more than $7.6 billion during the first quarter, a news release Thursday said. Originations fell from $8.7 billion previously reported for the fourth quarter 2007. Lenders One previously reported $40.4 billion in originations for all of last year.
