Survey: Nontraditional loans more popular than subprime

Senior loan officers queried by the Federal Reserve say nontraditional loans constitute a greater percentage of their loan portfolios than subprime mortgages, but that loans in both categories are performing as expected or better.

Of the 30 domestic banks with subprime residential mortgages on their books, nearly three-fourths said they accounted for less than 5 percent of their mortgage portfolios. One-fifth reported the share of such subprime loans was between 5 percent and 15 percent.  more...

National City's loan underwriting standards probed

A government audit of 41 FHA-backed mortgage loans made by National City Bank and that later ended up in default found that nearly half didn't meet federal underwriting standards.  more...

Southern California home sales hit 9-year low

Southern California home sales declined for the eighth consecutive month and hit the slowest pace in nine years, while the rate of home-price appreciation fell to the lowest level since fall 1999, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a real estate information company.

A total of 22,712 new and resale homes sold in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties in July, DataQuick reported, down 22.3 percent from 29,237 sales in June and down 26.9 percent from 31,069 sales in July last year. more...

Two sentenced in Florida mortgage fraud case

Two people convicted for participating in an alleged mortgage fraud ring involving 30 properties in Florida's Manatee and Sarasota counties have been sentenced to prison and ordered to pay $1.7 million in restitution with a third defendant who was sentenced to probation.

Todd A. Kolbe, who was convicted of buying homes and condos that were flipped to straw buyers at two to three times their worth, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, along with another defendant, Kirk McVey. Kolbe's sister-in-law, Amy S.  more...

ForSaleByOwner.com teams with ditech

ForSaleByOwner.com will partner with online mortgage services provider ditech.com to offer home buyers access to loans online.

The agreement -- which the companies characterized as a marketing alliance in a statement released today -- makes ditech.com the exclusive mortgage services provider at ForSaleByOwner.com.

Founded in 1997,  ForSale  more...

Golden West loan originations down 17% from last year

July loan originations at Golden West Financial Corp. fell to $3.7 billion, down 5 percent from June and down 17.3 percent from the same month last year.

Nearly all of the loans made by the Oakland, Calif.-based community bank are in the form of adjustable-rate mortgages, and credit quality has slipped.  more...

Real estate resales slow 7% in second quarter

The pace of second-quarter existing-home sales slowed 7 percent compared to second-quarter 2005, the National Association of Realtors reported today, while 20 states had an increase in sales activity.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of existing-home sales was 6.69 million in the second quarter, down from a record 7.19 million rate in second-quarter 2005.  more...

Online job ads slip nationwide

New, unduplicated online job ads across the United States decreased in July to 2.3 million, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series.

Last month's supply of online job ads was down by 101,900, or 4 percent, from the previous month. In June, there were approximately 2.44 million job ads posted to more than 1,200 Internet job boards nationwide.

In July, there were 1.55 online job ads per 100 persons in the U.S. labor force, compared with 1.63 in June 2006, 1.57 in May and 1.51 in April.  more...

Overnight real estate rates gain

Long-term mortgage interest rates were higher Monday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield rose to 5 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average gained to 6.11 percent, and the 15-year fixed-rate rose to 5.83 percent. The 1-year adjustable was up at 5.36 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield increased to 5.11 percent.

Rates are current as of 7:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Mortgage rate figures are according to Bankrate.com, which publishes nightly averages based on its survey of 4,000 banks in 50 states.  more...