Upbeat Fed talk pulls mortgage rates down

Mortgage rates dipped this week following San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Janet Yellen's words hinting of a decline in inflation, according to surveys conducted by Freddie Mac and Bankrate.com.

Yellen spoke encouragingly Tuesday to the Emeryville, Calif., Chamber of Commerce, and said that she believes "it is critical that inflation trend in a downward direction over the medium term.  more...

Countrywide's August loan production off 24%

Countrywide Financial Corp. reports mortgage loan fundings for August were down 24 percent compared to last year, at $40 billion.

Mortgage loan fundings for the year to date total $296 billion, down 4 percent from 2005.

Adjustable-rate loan fundings for August off were off 52 percent from last year, at $18 billion, while home equity funding remained essentially flat, at $4.1 billion.  more...

Regulator: Former Fannie Mae execs to be named in suit

Two top former Fannie Mae executives will likely be named in a lawsuit being prepared by the company's federal regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, over an accounting and management scandal. 

OFHEO director James Lockhart said Fannie Mae's former CEO Frank Raines and former Chief Financial Officer Timothy Howard are likely to be named in the pending lawsuit.  more...

New flat-fee real estate company offers leads

A new flat-fee real estate company offers services for buyers and sellers, and lead-generation services for other real estate agents.

Lawrence Bunnell, who was a co-founder of national real estate company homebytes.com Inc., is principal broker for IHS Realty.

For buyers, the company offers flat-fee services and rebates for home purchases.  more...

Partnership eliminates multiple security devices

Two leaders in real estate security technology have aligned to integrate lockbox device and multiple listing service passwords.

Clareity Security LLC and GE Security have formed a partnership in which Clareity's SafeMLS product will be fully integrated with GE Security's electronic keybox system.

Clareity Security provides data protection products and services to the real estate industry.  more...

Northwest home sales fall 7%

Home sales in western Washington declined for the sixth straight month in August amid surging inventory, while home prices maintained double-digit annual growth, according to the latest report from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

Brokers reported 9,479 sales last month, down 7 percent from a year earlier when 10,197 sales were recorded, according to MLS statistics.  more...

Overnight real estate rates inch lower

Long-term mortgage interest rates came down Wednesday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield fell to 4.76 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average dropped to 5.92 percent, and the 15-year fixed-rate sank to 5.63 percent. The 1-year adjustable was down at 5.31 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield decreased to 4.89 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...