In the March 10, 2010 Economics and Mortgage Analysis published by Fannie Mae some interesting facts were noted.  While the recent consumer confidence survey has several gray areas, there is a bright spot in terms of expected home ownership.  Roughly 2.5% of respondents said that they expected to buy a home in the next six months. This is the highest reading since last summer.  This percentage is comparable to rates seen during previous severe recessions.  During the height of the last upswing this percentage was double what we are seeing now.

The Freddie Mac survey of mortgage lenders found that the week ending March 25 saw a slight increase in mortgage rates. Last week's rates were 4.97% while this week slightly bumped to 4.99% for a thirty year fixed rate mortgage.  The fifteen year fixed rate mortgage came in at 4.34% not much of a difference from 4.33% last week.  Both needed an average of 0.6 point down to get the rate.  This week, another program to help struggling homeowners has been unveiled with critics jumping immediately on it.  Basically, this program doesn't cost the tax payers anything but incentivizes banks and lenders to modify payments for 3 to 6 month periods due to unemployment.  The mortgage holder must be collecting unemployment and out of work.  The second prong of the program allows for FHA loans to modify mortgage balances to be within 15% of market value.  This is an attempt to quell the increasing number of walk away foreclosures wherein the mortgage holder can make the payments but doesn't want to because the homes market value has dropped.  Details about the program are limited at this moment but banks have been quick to counteract that this is difficult to accomplish since it will cost them real money.  We will report back as more details become available.