“Babies don’t need a vacation but I still see them at the beach. I’ll go over to them and say, ‘What are you doing here, you’ve never worked a day in your life!’.”

~ Stephen Wright     I have attached a flier of questions that you should be asking your non RPM appraiser before allowing them access to the subject property.  With the new appraisal changes I am hearing and reading nothing but heartaches related to out of area appraisers.  The appraisals are done incorrectly with the wrong comps and adjustments.  Values coming low, poor service, etc. etc.  Use this sheet when scheduling your next appraisal.  Remember I can almost co brand any flier you want with your picture and contact information.  If you have a need for a special flier with current market info let me know.  Make it a great Friday and let me know if I can be of service.    

My father used to say, “It’s OK to kiss a nun, but don’t get into the habit.” Speaking of habits, the bond market has become accustomed to the Fed buying 
mortgages. What if they stopped? Federal Reserve President Lacker suggested the Fed may not need to spend the full amount it pledged ($1.25 trillion, 
for folks keeping score at home) to buy mortgages. So when someone like that suggests ceasing the program, it probably means a) the economy is seeing 
enough of a rebound that rates may move higher, or b) the demand for mortgages (artificial, yes, but demand nonetheless) will be lower, pushing prices 
lower and rates higher. So prices indeed did move down after his comments. 

Interestingly, it was reported that net purchases by the Fed totaled over $25 billion in the week compared to the 2009 weekly average of $23.3 
billion. For the six weeks prior to this, the Fed’s weekly totals were below $23 billion. Once again, where would mortgage rates be without the Fed 
having stepped in and been buying production? Would other entities have picked up production of roughly $4 billion a day?

The other day Existing Home Sales were up over 7%. That is great news. But as I mentioned earlier in the week, the “recovery” is not impacting every segment in the same way, and in fact most of the housing price boom has been in the lower-priced home market. For example, sales of houses priced at less than $100,000 were up almost 39%. But sales of homes with a price tag of over $250,000 were actually down, and in fact for anything more than $1 million sales were down 25-30%. 

Who are the large servicers of commercial and multifamily loans, which is supposedly the next big shoe to drop? Coming in first, according to 
the MBAA, is Wells Fargo/Wachovia Bank, with $476 billion in U.S. master and primary servicing at the end of June. PNC Real Estate/Midland Loan 
Services came in second, with $308 billion; Capmark Finance finished third, with $249 billion; KeyBank Real Estate Capital took fourth place, with 
$133 billion; and Bank of America finished fifth, with $132 billion. Add ‘em up to get $1.3 trillion. The MBAA breaks down the servicing into several 
categories, such as largest servicer for commercial securities, largest servicer for life insurance companies, etc.  
And speaking of servicing, Bank of America has completed the transfer of 180,000 FHA and VA loans (mostly held in Ginnie Mae securities) from Taylor, 
Bean and Whitaker. I imagine their IT department put in some overtime on that little project. 

 
Today we had Personal Income and Personal Consumption, and later this morning we’ll have the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence figures. Consumer spending (“Personal Consumption”) was up .2%, as expected, in July, mostly attributed to the "cash-for-clunkers" program. June’s spending number was revised to +.6% from +.4%. Unfortunately for people earning incomes, Personal Income was unchanged in July, and thus with spending rising faster than incomes, the personal savings rate fell to 4.2% from 4.5% in June. These numbers, combined with what looks like another day of improving stocks, have pushed the yield on the 10-yr up to 3.51% and pushed 30-yr mortgage prices down (worse) by about .125.