OFHEO

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) recently released their first quarter Housing Price Index (HPI). The index uses the same pairing method as the Case-Shiller index.The HPI is a weighted, repeat-sales index, meaning that it measures average price changes in repeat sales or refinancings on the same properties. This information is obtained by reviewing repeat mortgage transac

Today, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) published their Home Price Index (HPI) data for Q1 2008 showing unprecedentedly widespread weakness with 47 states including Washington DC experiencing peak home price declines with 32 declining better than 2% and 8 declining more that 7%.Topping the list of peak decliners by state is California at -23.22%, Nevada at -19.93%, Michig

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight(OFHEO) just released their seasonally-adjusted purchase-only house price index. The index fell 1.7% in the first quarter compared to Q4 of 2007. Over the past year, home prices fell 3.1%. This is the largest decline in the purchase-only index’s 17-year history. Significant findings: 1. Prices fell in the latest quarter in [...]

WASHINGTON (Thomson Financial) - The federal regulator of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said while the two companies have made strides in getting their financial reporting in order, they still need to be closely supervised in light of the risk they face given their exposure to trillions of dollars of mortgages. The Office of [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There are signs of improvement in U.S. housing markets but the idea of freezing mortgage rates would be a mistake, the director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said on Friday. “You’d really cause market dislocations,” said OFHEO director James Lockhart on CNBC television, when asked about a proposal put forward [...]

There are signs of improvement in U.S. housing markets but the idea of freezing mortgage rates for a period of time would be a mistake, the director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said on Friday.”You’d really cause market dislocations,” said OFHEO director James Lockhart on CNBC television, when asked about a [...]

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) recently released their fourth quarter Housing Price Index (HPI). The index uses the same pairing method as the Case-Shiller index.The HPI is a weighted, repeat-sales index, meaning that it measures average price changes in repeat sales or refinancings on the same properties. This information is obtained by reviewing repeat mortgage transactions on single-family properties whose mortgages have been purchased or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac since January 1975.The House Price Index is based on transactions involving conforming, conventional mortgages purchased or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Only mortgage transactions on single-family properties are included. Conforming refers to a mortgage that both meets th

Today, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) published their Home Price Index (HPI) data for Q4 2007 showing unprecedentedly widespread weakness with 49 states and Washington DC experiencing peak home price declines with 20 declining better than 2% and 8 declining more that 6%.Topping the list of peak decliners by state is California at -14.72%, Michigan at-13.48%, Nevada at -11.50%, Florida at -8.51%, Washington DC at -8.07, Arizona at -7.11%, Massachusetts as -6.34% and Rhode Island at -6.02%.Topping the list of year-over-year decliners by state is California at -11.49%, Nevada at -9.35%, Michigan at -8.82%, Florida at -8.51%, and Arizona at -6.52%.The OFHEO HPI series is formulated from home purchase and refinance information collected from Fannie Mae and Freddie Ma

“As Director of OFHEO, the regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, I believe that the foreclosure prevention initiative announced by President Bush is a major step forward. I thank Secretary Paulson and Jackson and everybody from the private-sector involved. Fannie and Freddie are the largest investors in AAA subprime mortgage backed securities. They hold $160 billion of these securities and they are the major buyers of the refinanced [tag-cat]subprime mortgage[tag-cat]s. This plan is a win-win for homeowners, neighborhoods, investors and the markets. But more has to be done. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played an extremely important role in supporting the mortgage market as all the problems erupted this summer. Since then, they have been buying and securitizing almost $100 billion a month in mortgages. Their market share of all new mortgages has grown from 38 percent last year to over 60 percent. We need to make sure that they will continue supporting the mortgage markets.

Yesterday, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) published their Home Price Index (HPI) data for Q3 2007 showing continued deceleration of home price appreciation in most regions as well as a broadening of outright declines now including 23 states declining from their respective peaks and 11 states declining on a year-over-year basis.Topping the list of peak decliners by state is Michigan at -9.22%, California at -8.52%, Nevada at -6.43%, Rhode Island at -5.45%, Massachusetts at -5.14%, Florida at -4.81% and New Hampshire at -2.22%.Topping the list of year-over-year decliners by state is California at -7.24%, Michigan at -7.07%, Nevada at -6.43%, Florida at -4.56%, Rhode Island at -3.16% and Massachusetts at -3.01%.The OFHEO HPI series is formulated from home purchase and refinance information collected from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and as such suffers slightly from some basic limitations of the data.First, Fannie and Freddie mortgages are subject to conforming l

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are important players in the mortgage market as they hold or guarantee 40 percent of all mortgages in the U.S. and about two-thirds of the conventional, conforming (non-jumbo) loans.  This year their share of the mortgage market has grown rapidly.  For this reason their safety and soundness is of paramount importance. The Enterprises have been very active in meeting their mission by providing significant liquidity and stability to the prime markets that they serve. They have entered into an increasingly large volume of securitization business in the conforming loan market — more than $500 billion dollars in the first half of the year — and that market is liquid and actively trading. We are encouraging them to increase this securitization activity. The problems in the mortgage markets are concentrated in product areas outside the authorized normal business of the Enterprises. These markets are adjusting to tightened underwriting standard

This week the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) published a request for public comment regarding its proposed policy changes to the procedures used to determine the conforming loan limit for 2008 and beyond.The conforming loan limit is the maximum loan size that the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE), namely Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, can purchase and today stands at $417,000.The importance of this value should not be overlooked as it is the key determining factor that distinguishes GSE purchased loans, which generally come with a lower interest rate due to a presumed (yet not necessarily factual) government guarantee, from “Jumbo” loans which are available unfettered from private lending institutions.In fact, OFHEO considers loans purchased by a GSE in excess of its conforming loan limit to be “unsafe and unsound practice, running contrary to statute”.That said, the proposed changes relate to the method of determining the limit in the face of declini

Last Friday, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) published their Home Price Index (HPI) data for Q1 2007 showing continued deceleration of home price appreciation in most regions as well as outright declines in many states and metropolitan areas.The current installment shows declines to the East North Central and New England census regions as well as to 25 states (using “purchase only” data) including Michigan, Massachusetts, Californian, and Florida and a whole host of Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA).I have updated my OFHEO HPI Charting Tool by both updating the data as well as adding some additional features that make the tool more powerful but first, I should mention some background on the OFHEO HPI.The OFHEO HPI series is formulated from home purchase and refinance information collected from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and as such suffers slightly from some basic limitations of the data.First, Fannie and Freddie mortgages are subject to conforming loa

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) released the Q4 2006 results of their housing price index (HPI) last Thursday showing a bit of a strengthening trend in the index.Recall that the Q3 2006 results showed that Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island were all experiencing an actual contraction to home prices.In Q4 on the other hand, all the contracting states are now expanding again and for all but Massachusetts and Michigan, have surpassed their prior peak prices.Click the following char for a larger version.As Patrick Lawler, Chief Economist of OFHEO puts it:“The continuing strength in the economy and decreasing interest rates for borrowers prevented a harder landing in housing markets during the second half of last year… Last quarter, though sharper drops occurred locally, no state had average price declines of as much as one percent,”One interesting aspect of the OFHEO data that the release didn’t highlight very well was the f