Diane Gerdes – RIP Arizona Housing Market
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011www.themortgageadvantage.com It’s official. Our government is slowly killing the Arizona housing market. President Obama torpedoed the already distressed home financing industry by announcing the gradual raising of down payments to a minimum of 10% on conventional loans. He touted a 2009 survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis that reported families who placed minimum down on their home purchases were more likely to default. Really? 2009 is eons ago in housing terms and those figures are probably reflective of the 100% loans offered from 2004 through 2007. But you would have to actually pay attention to today’s numbers to know families aren’t ‘Toughing it out’ in a house that has lost 50% (or more) of its value, no matter what they put down. In 2004 studies surfaced proclaiming 100 percent financing was hunky dory. At that time housing prices were increasing, the economy was swinging. What could possibly go wrong? Or maybe it was the same survey that reported the more paperwork you sign, the less likely you will foreclose. “Homes Are Now Difficult to Buy” incentive program, or HAND in keeping with the governments love of catchy acronyms, was joined by FHA’s broadcast of a second mortgage insurance premium (MIP) increase in six months to help shore up its reserves. Before September, the monthly MIP on a 0000 FHA loan was .66. After April it will be 1.67, that’s right, a 0.00 a month jump in payment. In the 30’s the government stepped in to save the …