There is more to confirm that the housing market is stabilizing. Average rates for a 30-year mortgage moved upwards last week, but demand for loans ― refinancing or otherwise ― as well as purchases, continued to increase. “This marks the fourth consecutive weekly gain – the first time this has happened since March, when fixed mortgage rates first dropped and stayed below 5 percent,” the report said.

There is definitely a demand for mobile home financing and manufactured home refinancing options is as high as ever. At the same time, lenders have tightened their qualification process, and very few mobile home loans or refinancing are being approved. The tradgety is that rates are so low right now, however banks just don’t want to lend, especially in the mobile home market.

This report may have an impact on the housing and financial markets, but it is really just pointing out the obvious and providing numbers as support. At our stage in the economic crisis, a month-by-month analysis would seem more helpful than a 2000-2006 report. This is because the statistics found in the report can help to predict the precise point when the markets will begin to turn upward.

Read the full WSJ article

Not many people know that the Great Depression had a W-shape. An article in the Wall Street Journal last week outlined this, and went over how the Fed is trying to prevent a backlach recession. Today, a WSJ article pointed this principle towards the housing market.

Though home prices are still in a deep rut, prices can lag behind home building and home buying, which have been improving lately. A recovery in home prices would help consumers feel richer and stem losses on bank balance sheets from bad mortgage bets — which can ultimately help lead to a broader economic recovery.

As home prices seem to be rising, the pessimists are beginning their predictions, and they may be right! The recent 12% rise in house prices was very promising, but there are still a good amount of foreclosures expected.

Another big problem is in the higher end of the housing market, where there haven’t been as many distressed sales as in the lower end, suggesting prices haven’t fully corrected. The top tier of the market by price has fallen only about 27%, compared with about 45% for the lowest tier, while the middle of the market is down about 33%, according to Ivy Zelman, chief executive of Zelman & Associates, a housing-research firm.

Mobile Home sales have been stalled lately, with very few deals actually being completed. The problem is that the banks are too tight, in response to their crisis and the heat they’ve taken for having loose lending practices over the past 5 years. Now, their newfound conservatism with lending has made it nearly impossible to finance or refinance a mobile home across America. If the housing market does have a W-shape, then the mobile home market will just be a flat line at the bottom of that W because there is no capital going into mobile homes.

With a large population of retired Americans living in mobile homes, the financing and refinancing options should become available soon. The mobile hom emarket is starved for financing, and it’s only a matter of time before a smart investor siezes the opportunity. But, who will be this mobile home angel investor? Warren Buffett just pulled out of the mobile home market, or atleast it seems he will. That will likely scare off some investors from the mobile home market, simply because of Buffetts reputation. However, the need for a mobile home finance and refinance will still remain, and someone will fill the void, and that investor will rake it in.

• Missed payments lingering in collections with original amounts of $100 or less will no longer do damage to credit scores
• Consumers are less likely to be penalized for a single delinquency if it occurred two or more years ago
• If a consumer’s credit usage is high, that will be more likely to hurt his or her score
• The effectiveness of “Piggybacking” will be reduced, eliminating the tactic of improving low credit scores

Not all banks are adopting it immediately, but more than 400 lenders are using or testing FICO 08. The best ways to assure your credit score remains high haven’t changed. Pay bills on time and keep card balances low. Your payment history, and the amount you owe on your accounts as a ratio of the amount of credit you have access to, are important components of your credit score.

Now more than ever, your Credit score will come into play when you applyto finance or refinance a mobile home loan. Your credit score is the best way for a lender to assess the risk of lending to an individual. Nowadays, if your FICO is below 700 then you will have a difficult time getting approved. However, we still have some options for you if you rscore is above 640.

Like any good website, we try to provide valuable information on our topic: mobile home loans. Since we are one of the few companies that specialize in financing and refinancing mobile home loans, we now provide a California Mobile Home Law Section of our website to focus on legislation as it relates to mobile home owners, communities, and the industry. We have gathered the information directly from the State of California website, and we will continually monitor manufactured home laws and update this section of our website.

Who will be the Next Big Mobile Home Mortgage Lender?

After a chain of events in the manufactured home finance community, we are all left asking who the next big lender will be. The government last week banned Taylor, Bean & Whitaker from making any more federally insured loans. HUD said Taylor failed to submit a required financial report, which raised fraud concerns. The company was also barred from issuing mortgage-backed securities for the Government National Mortgage Association, or Ginnie Mae. Taylor was the No. 1 source of financing for manufactured housing, they funded nearly 13 percent ($1.45 billion) of all manufactured home loans insured by the FHA in 2007.

Manufactured homes have long been the first step toward homeownership for low-income Americans, and mortgage brokers are struggling to find new sources of funding from a pool of lenders that has shrunk dramatically during the past several years. Manufactured houses, which are factory-built in parts and then put together at a land site, are significantly less expensive than traditional homes. According to the Commerce Department, the average price for a manufactured home in 2008 was $65K, much lower than the average price of $292K for a site-built home.

Countrywide, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan are the next largest mobile home lenders, but they aren’t as active as they were in the manufactured home loan market. The lack of competition will likely lead to higher rates. As a result, there are very few loan programs available to finance or refinance a mobile home.

Strangely, Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway revealed recently that in this current housing/banking crisis, their manufactured home customers are foreclosing less and making their payments more. Berkshire subsidiary Clayton Homes’ loan delinquency rates have been stable: the rate was 3.26% in 2004; it was at 3.5% in 2008; and now it’s 3.82%. Surprisingly, the delinquency rate in the traditional housing market is around 6.4%. Annual credit losses are running steady at a reasonable 1.5% of the loan portfolio. It is worth mentioning, however, that Clayton does not securitize their loans. This means they remain on their books, so they are much more conservative in the loan approval process.

This seems paradoxical, but it should at the very least make manufactured home loans a consideration among the lenders that are looking to emerge into a lucrative new niche market. Which leaves everyone in the manufactured home community asking the question: Who will be America’s Next Top Manufactured Home Lender be?

NY Times: Lender’s Shutdown Hobbles Manufactured Housing
CNN: Warren Buffet’s Happy Housing Story

Now is generally not the time to take equity out of your mobile home or site-built home, because the housing prices have hit a low point. However, because the interest rates are very low, now is a very good time to refinance your manufactured home loan to lower your interest rate or lower your monthly payments.  “We’re starting to see signs of stabilization in the mortgage market,” says Jim lockhart. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have refinance almost 1.9 million mortgage loans. Housing Prices are beginning to look as though they have hit a bottom, and this usually means that they will slowly start to climb again.

The goal of the Federal Reserve’s agency MBS program is to support the mortgage and housing markets and to improve the conditions of financial markets. Only fixed-rate agency MBS securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae are eligible assets for the program. The program includes, but is not limited to, 30-year, 20-year and 15-year securities of these issuers.

Refinancing your Manufactured Home can greatly help in these difficult economic times.

You may be able to save a bundle on your monthly Mobile Home mortgage payment. A lower interest rate on your manufactured home loan is an attractive reason to refinance. But two other factors should be weighed against that lower rate: refinancing a new loan that has a longer term than your current loan makes for lower payments in these hard economic times. This will help take the strain off of your finances for now, and you can refinance into a mobile home loan with a shorter term later on. This will make for less interest payments over the life of the financing.

Mobile Home prices have declined in many areas and appraisers generally have become more conservative about the valuations of manufactured homes. This means many homeowners do not have enough equity to refinance. However, the federal government’s Making Home Affordable program allows qualified homeowners to refinance even if they owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth. The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio on a Home Affordable Refinance loan can be as high as 125 percent. More information about this program can be found at www.makinghomeaffordable.gov.

Here are the requirements for the Making Home Affordable program:

• They own a one- to four-unit home.
• The loan on their home is owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
• They are current on their mortgage payments and have not been 30 days late making a payment within the past 12 months.
• Their mortgage is no more than 125% of the value of their home; in this case they owe $258,000 on their first mortgage but their home value dropped to $250,000.

If you decide to refinance, it’s always a good idea to seek out a lender or mortgage broker that specializes in manufactured home finance and refinance. They can find you the appropriate combination of interest rate, terms and costs to fit your needs. Also, be ready with your documentation. Most lenders today require a paycheck stub, bank statement, credit report and other information before they’ll approve your new loan refinance.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said that mortgage applications for both purchase and refinance loans decreased 3.5 percent last week. There was a drop in demand for home refinancing loans as interest rates soared to their highest levels since June. However, applications for loans to buy homes, an early indicator of sales, rose slightly.

Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, averaged 5.38 percent, up 0.21 percentage point from the previous week. It was the highest rate since the week ended June 19 and significantly above the all-time low of 4.61 percent set in the week ended March 27. The survey has been conducted weekly since 1990. Interest rates a year ago were at 6.57 percent. Mortgage rates were above 5 percent for an 11th straight week, and some experts believe rates at 5 percent and below are required to make a significant impact on the demand of home loans.