VA Originations Fall in November

VA Originations fell to nearly 15,000 in November. This is a drop from nearly 19,000 in the month of October. This reduction may be seasonal but we will continue to monitor the trend over the coming months.


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FHA Purchase Mortgage Endorsements - 78,000 for November

FHA purchase money mortgage endorsements for November 2008 was 78,824 units. This was a large decline from October when FHA endorsed 107,357 purchase mortgages. This decline in FHA purchase endorsements is partially a seasonal adjustment. Another contributor might be that as of October, seller assisted down payment assistance through a non profit organization is no longer eligible for FHA mortgage insurance.

Soon we might be asking "where is DAP ... now that we really need them?"

Adjustable Rate Mortgages? No Thanks!

Look at home purchasers' current appetite for adjustable rate mortgages as compared with historical values.





Now I need my fix!

FHA Refis Reach New Monthly High for 2008

The number of FHA Refinance Originations reached a new monthly high nationally for 2008 in October. Take a look at the chart below.

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I expect this number to be even higher for November with the decreasing rates we have seen for the last month. Do you agree? Share your thoughts.

Maricopa County Reaches New Highs

Maricopa County, Arizona reached new monthly highs in originations for FHA and VA in October 2008. This growth helped to continue to strengthen their position as the #1 County by dollar volume year-to-date for FHA and VA.

Click on the image for a larger view of the FHA chart.

Click on the image for a larger view of the VA chart.

Prince William County Reaches New Monthly High

Prince William County, Virginia reached a new monthly high in FHA originations in October. Take a look at the chart below to see the ever increasing FHA originations.

Click on the image to see a larger view.

To see who is leading in this market - click here!

Wells FHA Market Share Rising in Seattle

Wells Fargo's FHA market share reached a new monthly high in Seattle metro for 2008. Wells' market share reached 8.71% in October, they began the year with 3.88% of the market in January 2008. The chart below shows their monthly trend.

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Who is paying the price for Wells increased market share? National City is one possibility. Wells Fargo seems to have taken advantage of National City's troubles in this marketplace. National City's market share has declined from 9.87% in January to 2.70% in October. The chart below shows the month by month decline of National City's FHA market share in this market.

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San Antonio FHA Originations Rise in October

The FHA Originations for October reached the highest level of the year in San Antonio, Texas. The chart below shows the monthly trend for 2008.



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CTX Mortgage of Dallas, TX is Number 1 in this market. Click here to see the remainder of the Top Ten for January through October 2008.

Riverside County California Shows an Uptick in Home Prices

Is this noise or have we reached a bottom in price declines? One month of price increases is encouraging.







Sales data for Riverside County, CA show the first monthly increase in the median home sale price. The median price of homes sold in October was $245,000. This represents a $5,000 increase in the median home sale price over September which was $240,000. Home prices have been declining steadily in Riverside County. The peak median home sale price in Riverside was $427,000 back in August 2006.

Prosperity Mortgage Originations Rise in October

Prosperity Mortgage of Fairfax, VA saw a healthly increase in their FHA Purchase Originations in Virginia for the month of October. Prosperity Mortgage also continues to maintain their healthy market share lead for FHA Correspondent Lenders in Virginia. Click on this link to see the Top 5. See the chart below for Prosperity's trend of FHA originations for January through October 2008.

Click on the image below for a larger view.

VA Originations Rise Nationally

After seeing declines in August and September, VA Mortgage Originations rose again nationally in October 2008. There were 18,897 VA Originations in October which accounts for increase of over 1,000 from the previous month. The monthly high for the year occurred in July at 20,516. The chart below shows the trend for 2008.

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It should be interesting to see what happens in November?

Wells Fargo Leads FHA Purchase Mortgages

Wells Fargo is No. 1 in FHA Purchase Mortgage market share through October 2008. Wells has captured over 10% of the market. The next competitor is Countrywide at over 6%. Click here to see the Top 5 lenders.

Contact MortgageDataWeb if you interested in seeing the Top 100 FHA Lenders through October 2008.

FHA Originations Rise in October

After a dip in September, FHA Originations rose in October to their highest level for the year. The chart below shows the monthly trend for January through October 2008.

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Stockton, CA FHA Originations Rising

Is Stockton, California slowly climbing out of their foreclosure mess? The monthly number of FHA Purchase Originations is continuing to rise. The chart below shows the trend of FHA Originations for January through September 2008.

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Buyers can now buy in Stockton with FHA products that they were unable to do before. Hopefully this will help reduce the inventory of foreclosed properties.

Puerto Rican Homeowners Paid Less for Conventional Mortgages

Puerto Rican homeowners benefited from lower proportions of high interest rate mortgages as compared with the rest of the United States. The 2007 HMDA data shows that roughly 18% of first lien mortgages on owner occupied single family homes in Puerto Rico had reportable interest rate spreads.

The rate spread values found in HMDA data are differences in the mortgage annual percentage rate and the interest rates of US Treasury securities with similar maturities. If the rate spread is greater than 3% then the rate spread is reportable in the HMDA data. In all US metropolitan areas, the mean proportion of rate spread reportable mortgages versus all mortgages was 27%.

In 2007 versus 2006, all US metropolitan areas except Puerto Rico showed a decrease in the proportion of rate spread reportable mortgages. For the entire US including Puerto Rico, the percent change in the number of rate spread reportable mortgages was almost 9% lower in 2007 versus 2006. In Puerto Rico the proportion of rate spread reportable mortgages increased nearly 5%. For the reported rate spreads in Puerto Rico the interest rate spread increased from 3.813 % in 2006 to 3.954% in 2007.

Here are the mortgage lenders that participated in charging Puerto Rican homeowners higher interest rates in 2007. (lot of ways to spin the data)!

Bakersfield, CA Losing Value Fast

In Bakersfield, CA new homeowners are losing value fast. Those who have bought in 2008, over one-third already have negative equity. Negative equity statistics like this will contribute further to the current foreclosure mess. Below is a chart that shows the median home price trend in Bakersfield for the last few years.


Click on the image below for a larger view.

FHA Originations Continue to Increase in 2008

FHA's share of all monthly mortgage originations has increased to average of 30.96% in 2008 compared to 8.74% for the same period in 2007. The chart below shows the monthly trend for FHA originations for January 2007 through September 2008.

Click on the image below for a larger view.

See the chart below for the corresponding trend for Conventional Originations during the same period.

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LA FHA Purchase Market Continues To Grow

The changes in legislation impacting the FHA marketplace has created new geographic markets for FHA products. This is particularly true in high cost areas like Los Angeles. The chart below shows the monthly FHA Purchase Originations from January 2003 through September 2008.

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Can the FHA bureaucracy keep up with this increased demand?

Fixed Interest Rates Dominate Conventional Purchase Mortgages

It use to be popular for consumers to choose and lenders to offer adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs). ARMs are becoming scare these days. The chart shows that roughly 95% of new conventional purchase money mortgages are fixed rate mortgages.

Click Chart to view larger Image

In the first half of 2005 nearly half of all new conventional purchase mortgages were ARMs.

Is There Still A Conventional Refinance Market?

The chart below illustrates the steep decline that has taken place through September 2008 in the Conventional Refinance marketplace since the Government passed legislation earlier this year to make FHA an excellent option for homeowners looking to refinance.

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The corresponding chart below shows what has taken place in the FHA Refi marketplace.

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The September Conventional numbers are still twice as high as FHA but this is something to continue to watch.

Is The LA Market Now Affordable?

Is the Los Angeles Metro market ready to bounce back? Maybe not, but the average purchase mortgage has decreased to a relatively affordable level. The chart below shows the monthly decrease in the Average Purchase Mortgage from January 2007 through September 2008.


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DHI Mortgage Loses Market Share

DHI Mortgage of Austin, Texas the number one FHA lender in Texas through September 2008 lost market share last month. Take a look at the chart below.

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This one bears watching in the coming months. It may be opportunity for someone else to take the leadership position in Texas.

FHA Average Mortgage Peaks in August 2008

The average FHA mortgage for purchase and refinances in September fell slightly to $175,392. This mortgage amount was just below the record average FHA mortgage amount set in August ($176,004) and the previous record of $175,636 set in July of this year. In September 2007, the average FHA mortgage amount was $145,512. The year over year increase in the average FHA mortgage amount was $29,880 or 20.5%.

Wells Fargo Leads in VA Mortgage Originations

Take a look at the Leading VA Lenders year-to-date through September 2008. Wells Fargo is No.1. Click here to see the other in the Top 5. If you are interested in seeing who else is performing well nationally in the VA market after the Top 5, contact MortgageDataWeb.

Top FHA Lenders through September

We now have available the Top FHA Lenders from January through September 2008. To see the Top 5 click here. Contact MortgageDataWeb if you are interested in a report that goes beyond the Top 5.

FHA Endorsements Slow in September

After many months of increasing monthly endorsements, things slowed a bit in September. There has been significant growth each month rising from just over 60,000 in January to over 140,000 in August. Take a look at the chart below.


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Any guesses on this slowing of activity? Is it a temporary lull or something more sustanined? It is probably to early to tell right now. We will be keeping an eye on this and report again next month.

Median Home Price Data Available Now at Mortgagedataweb

Median home price data is now available at MortgageDataWeb. You can obtain charts of median home prices for metropolitan areas, counties, cities, towns, and zip codes with monthly periodicity. Data is available for most areas from 2003 to the present. Check it out! It is free!

Allied Home Mortgage Losing Market Share

There is an interesting trend developing in the State of Maryland FHA Refi market. The No. 1 lender in terms of market share through August 2008 is Allied Home Mortgage Capital of Houston, Texas. The trend that is developing is that Allied is losing market share. Take a look at the chart below.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Who is stealing their market share? Any guesses? Is this seasonal or a longer trend?

First Tennessee Growing in Baltimore

There are some areas that mortgages are being originated. Baltimore is one such area. Baltimore is currently #5 in FHA Mortgage Dollar Volume year-to-date through August 2008. Who is a lender taking advantage of this market in Baltimore? First Tennessee Bank is one such lender. Take a look at the chart below to review the growth in their monthly FHA originations.

Click on the image for a larger view.

TowneBank Fast Riser in Virginia Beach

TowneBank of Virginia Beach, Virginia is rising fast in market share for the Virginia Beach VA market. TowneBank is currently #3 through August 2008. The chart below shows their monthly market share percentage and how it is increasing through 2008.

Click on the image for a larger view.

The Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News VA market is currently the largest in the country. So Townbank is somebody to keep an eye on.

FHA Jumbos Finance Homes in Fairfax Station, Virginia

Fairfax Station, in Fairfax County Virginia has single family homes with median sale prices approaching $800,000. It is rare to see FHA mortgages used to finance homes in this community. Prior mortgage loan amount limits for FHA mortgages made them useless in Fairfax Station. Things are different now! FHA mortgage loan amount limits are $729,750 for the remainder of this year for homes in Fairfax Station. The chart shows the mortgage lenders originating FHA mortgages on homes in Fairfax Station. Now FHA mortgages are financing home purchases or refinancing existing mortgages in markets where conventional jumbos were the only way to go.

Prosperity Mortgage Leads in DC

Prosperity Mortgage of Fairfax, VA is No. 1 in market share for FHA Correspondent Lending in the DC Metro from January through August 2008. The chart below shows Prosperity's significant month-to-month growth. This is a lender to keep an eye on to see if this increase in market share continues for the remainder of the year.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Wells Fargo Leads in VA Mortgage Sales in Riverside, CA

Wells Fargo Mortgage leads in sales of VA guaranteed mortgages in Riverside County, California. In Riverside County, their are roughly 30 new conventional mortgages and 5 new FHA mortgages for every new VA mortgage. VA mortgage products and FHA mortgage products are gaining sales rapidly while conventional mortgage sales have been declining. The rapid rise of VA mortgages justifies tracking the leaders in sales of these products.

Bank of America Dominates Riverside Conventional Mortgage Market

Bank of America along with their recent acquisition Countrywide, have a combined market share exceeding 23 percent in Riverside County, California. For conventional mortgages the number of new originations during 2008 has been declining for all lenders in Riverside including Bank of America.. Even with the steady decline in new conventional originations, Bank of America and Countrywide combined have grown their market share during the year making them a dominant force in the market. Bank of America combined with Countrywide has also grown their number of mortgages and market share with FHA mortgages.

Countrywide (BofA) Dominates Riverside County FHA Mortgage Sales

Through their acquisition of Countrywide, Bank of America now dominates the FHA mortgage market in Riverside, California. The new Bank of America entity's market share for FHA mortgages in Riverside exceed 16 percent for the calender year. More recently their market share has approached 24 percent.

Losing Market Share in Prince Georges County

Prince George's County, Maryland is one of the fast rising counties for FHA business this year. Prince George's is currently # 5 through August 2008. Due to this increased volume, the competition has certainly increased. Who is losing market share due to the increased competition? One firm that is losing market share is Univeral Mortgage & Finance. Take a look at the chart below to see their decrease in market share through August 2008.

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Riverside County Leading Cities

Riverside County, California has seen tremendous growth in FHA originations as many areas of the country this year. The chart below shows the monthly FHA originations from January through August 2008.

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A more interesting question is where is this growth taking place within the county? We have a report that shows the "Leading Cities Within A County". Here is a report for Riverside County.

If you are interested in seeing a similar report for other counties, contact MortgageDataWeb.

Clusters of VA Mortgage Originations in the US

VA mortgages are originated in areas where you might not expect. The map in the image shows the counts of new VA mortgages by county in continental U.S. from January 2008 through June 2008. Most of the time the most mortgages of a particular type is in counties with the largest populations (e.g. Los Angeles). For VA mortgages, the leading counties include Bexar Texas, El Paso Colorado, Cumberland North Carolina. The counties near those leading VA counties also have high numbers of VA mortgage originations. This shows that the VA mortgages are originated in geographic clusters.

Eventually the high population counties will see more VA mortgages as sources for mortgage financing become more difficult in the conventional mortgage market space.

Rapidly Growing Chicago FHA Market Continues in August

The rapid growth of the FHA market (and the rapid decrease of the Conforming market) continued in August. Below are two charts that show the rapid increase in FHA Purchase originations and rapid decrease in $Conforming Purchase originations in Chicago through August 2008.

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Click on the image for a larger view.

Will there be a Conforming market left in September?

Maricopa County, Arizona Leading in FHA Volume

Take a look at the leading counties for FHA dollar volume year-to-date through July 2008. Maricopa county is showing tremendous growth this year. The chart below shows their month by month growth in originations.

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What lender has the largest market share in this growing market? Countrwide is #1 through July 2008, take a look at their growth in market share in the chart below.

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MortgageDataWeb has the Mortgage Data on Institutions Missing from 2007 HMDA Data

Many mortgage companies who went bankrupt in 2007 and failed to disclose their 2007 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data. These same mortgage lenders originated a significant amount of new mortgages in 2007 until they closed down business operations. Researchers in residential finance use HMDA data to analyze mortgage lending activity. When using the 2007 HMDA data, researchers will need to make adjustments in their analysis to account for the significant quantity of mortgage activity that is missing from the data.

MortgageDataWeb has mortgage lending data collected from municipal recordings. Some examples of bankrupt mortgage institutions who did not report their 2007 data are provided here along with the metropolitan areas where their loans were originated. The company reports show the mortgage company's originations and market share in the metropolitan areas they operated in. These companies had a substantial market share in the markets they operated in until the time they stopped funding new mortgages in 2007.

Click the Links Below to view the mortgage orgination data by metropolitan area for the companies below:

New Century Mortgage of Irvine, California originated nearly 17,000 conventional mortgages ($3.6 billion) until they stopped business in March 2007.

American Home Mortgage (including American Brokers Conduit) of Melville, New York originated over 71,000 conventional mortgages ($18.8 billion) until they shut down in August 2007.

First Magnus Financial of Tucson, Arizona originated roughly 54,000 conventional mortgages ($11,7 billion) until they closed their doors in August.

There is so much more missing from 2007 HMDA! Where are you going to find that mortgage data?

2007 HMDA Information Misses Data from Many Insititutions

Many mortgage companies exited the business during 2007. Those mortgage companies originated mortgages in 2007 however we did not find their loan application register information in the 2007 HMDA data. We listed what we found to be the top 15 mortgage missing companies in the 2007 HMDA data. The number of mortgages and dollar amounts of mortgages are the confidential purchase and refinance mortgages those companies originated in 2006.

Click image to enlarge report

Suntrust Rising Fast in July

Suntrust Mortgage's share of the Atlanta FHA market is rising fast. The depth of the Atlanta FHA market is also one of the largest in the country. The chart below shows Suntrust growth in FHA market share over the last 12 months through July 2008.

Click on the image below for a larger view of the chart.

Interested in finding out who are the fast risers in Atlanta and other markets? Contact MortgageDataWeb now.

FHA Refis Drop in July

Today, let us take a look at FHA Refinance originations nationally. The chart below shows the upward trend over many months since the passage of the Economic Stimulus Package. However, the Refi originations dipped slightly in July 2008. Is this a sign of a trend or will the numbers bounce up again? Check back in a few weeks for the August results.

2007 HMDA Data shows Decline in Rate Spread Reportable Mortgages

Since 2004, any mortgage having an annual percentage interest rate exceeding the rate on treasury securities of comparable maturity by a threshold (3% for first lien and 5% for subordinate lien) must be reported in the lender's annual Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data submission. All reported mortgages having annual percentage rates below the HMDA rate spread threshold will not include a rate spread value in the lender's annual HMDA data submission.

The HMDA data was examined from 2007 back to 2004 to determine the proportion of mortgages showing a reportable rate spread value (higher cost loans) to mortgages not having the rate spread value (lower cost loans). The regulators desired having rate spread values that exceeded a threshold because they believed that this enabled them to have greater monitoring of the sub-prime segment of the mortgage market while removing the reporting burden from mortgages believed to be seperate from the sub-prime segment of the mortgage market.

In the examination of the data for this post, we only included first lien conventional purchase and first lien conventional refinance mortgages on owner occupied 1-4 family dwellings. Normally lenders charged higher interest rates on non-owner occupied home loans and lenders also charged higher interest rates on manufactured housing. Mortgages with dollar conforming amounts were compared to each other and mortgages having jumbo dollar amounts were also compared. Lenders typically charge higher rates for mortgages exceeded the conforming loan limits. HMDA data provides very few data items to help compare mortgage loans of similar risks to investors but the criteria used to compare mortgages in this study help show relations of mortgages with similar risk factors.

Click on chart for larger image:

The chart shows that in 2007 there was a substantial reduction in the proportion of rate spread reportable mortgages. From 2004 to 2006 there were rapidly rising proportions of mortgages having HMDA reportable rate spreads.

One surprise (at least too me) was that the proportion of rate spread reportable mortgages was always higher for the mortgages having loan amounts within the conforming loan limits as compared to the proportion of jumbo mortgages having rate spread reportable mortgages. We assumed that jumbo mortgage amounts added risks and typically carried higher rates. Given that jumbo mortgages carried higher rates, we might expect that to flow to higher rates of rate spread reportable mortgages for the jumbo segment. Not so!

2007 HMDA Data Shows GSE Share Increased

It is not a surprise but now we measure the share of conventional mortgages purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs). The HMDA data shows that the GSE share increased from 19% in 2006 to 28% in 2007. This is the first year of share increase for GSE purchases of conventional mortgages since 2003.

According to the HMDA data, the GSE purchased 2.1 million mortgages in 2007. The mortgage amounts were $433 billion. These are the lowest numbers in more years than we have data for. 2007 was a bad year for the mortgage industry. 2008 is worse! What will 2009 bring?

Who is Getting WaMu's Market Share?

Today's (18 Sept. 2008) news that WaMu seems to be searching for a buyer presents some interesting questions when analyzing the 2008 market share data. Take a look at the chart below for the State of California.

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Even though WaMu's market share has decreased significantly this year, they still have almost 1% of the California Conventional Purchase market as of July. Wells Fargo and Citi are rumored potential buyers. If it is Wells Fargo, WaMu's market share may be enough to keep them in a strong position in California. See the chart below for the current market share of Wells.

Click on the image for a larger view.

To see a complete market share report for California, contact MortgageDataWeb.

FHA Endorsement Volume to be Impacted by the End of Down Payment Assistance

Borrowers for roughly 35 percent of all FHA purchase money mortgages utilized down payment assistance from non profit organizations. As of October 1, 2008 borrowers will no longer be able to obtain seller assisted down payments coming through non profits. Unless a new law reinstates down payment assistance by non profits for FHA mortgages, a large proportion of FHA mortgages will be eliminated. We expect that the recent increases in FHA mortgages will be halted. This might be a temporary situation but it should be visible in our charting of the mortgage data.

Do the mortgagees need down payment assistance to stay in business?

2007 HMDA Data Findings - Bank of America to Dominate National Mortgage Market!

The 2007 HMDA data was released last Thursday. MortgageDataWeb has already published market share reports for all areas of the nation.

When we look at the list of the top 100 hundred conventional mortgage lenders, it has so many mortgage institutions that are on the "Mortgage Implode" web site.

Click image to enlarge

Here we are publishing the top 10 conventional mortgage lenders for 2007 and 2006. You can contact MortgageDataWeb.com to order the top 100.

Some findings are that in 2007, there were roughly 3.4 million fewer conventional purchase and refinance mortgages as compared with 2006.

Click Image to enlarge

The conventional purchase and refinance origination dollar volume declined from $2.37 trillion in 2006 to $1.82 trillion in 2007.

One interesting mortgage company gainer in 2007 (if you want to call then a gainer) was Indymac Bank. Indymac moved from 11th position in 2006 to 9th place in 2007. Indymac increased their market share from 1.52% to 2.11% in 2007 and Indymac increased their mortgage origination volume from $36 billion to $38.54 billion. Lottagooditdidum!

Bank of America did really well in 2007 without having Countrywide on their team. Bank of America's mortgage originations grew by $20 billion in 2007 over 2006. Bank of America's market share increased from 3.38% to 5.38%. Assume that Countrywide and Bank of America maintain the same market share in 2008 as they have had in 2007, then the addition of Countrywide to Bank of America will result in a mortgage market share exceeding 15%.

I'll make a prediction that Bank of America will exceed 20% market share (1 of every 5 dollars of new mortgages) going forward in 2009. You can make your predictions here and we will report the results.

DC FHA Originations Triple!

Many of the high-cost real estate markets have seen a tremendous growth in FHA originations since the raising of the loan ceilings earlier this year. The Washington DC Metro area is one such area. The chart below shows the growth in mortgage orginations from August 2007 through July 2008.

Click on the image below for a larger view of the chart.

To see who is leading in this growing market, see the chart below.

Click on the image below for a larger view of the chart.