First Mortgage Buyer

The sales of new houses continued to decline in
December according to monthly data jointly released by the U.S. Census
Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Despite the steadily dropping sales throughout the year, 2007 ended up
with the fifth highest sales of existing homes on record. 5,652,000
existing homes sold during the year but this was 12.8 percent fewer units
than the 6,478,000 sold in 2006.

Mortgage rates continued to fall during the week
ended January 17 according to the results of the Primary Mortgage Market
Survey released by Freddie Mac and, in the case of 30 and 15-year fixed
rate mortgages (FRMs) reached the lowest level since July 2005.

In a nearly unprecedented move the Federal Reserve early Tuesday cut the Federal discount rate by .75 of a point, the largest single rate cut in 20 years.

Now it begins. The President and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve admitted on Thursday (whether belatedly or not is for others to determine) that the U.S. economy is taking a header, and yes something needs to be done about it but, no, we aren’t quite ready yet to announce exactly what.

Bernanke’s words were hardly out of his mouth before the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) posted its list
of suggestions.

“We believe that any stimulus package must address housing issues and increasing the conforming loan limits for these two GSEs…”

This morning the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that builders continue to initiate the construction of new homes in lower numbers. According to the joint report, privately-owned housing starts for the month of January 2008 fell 14.2 percent month-over-month as compared to December 2007.