Mortgage Association

Homebuyers and sellers didn't need another worry, on top of the future of interest rates and the potential for a housing market slowdown. But the news that Fannie Mae - the nation's largest buyer of home loans - was being accused of accounting misdeeds gave some consumers something else to fret about. Will bankers become leery of making new loans? Will interest rates spike? Not likely, say mortgage bankers and other experts. Very little from Fannie Mae's troubles will trickle down to buyers or sellers - and anything that does shouldn't affect their housing plans.

Fewer Maryland homeowners were in foreclosure or behind on mortgage payments in the first quarter compared to the same period a year ago, reflecting a loan crisis on the mend, statistics released Thursday show. About 133,000 of the state's nearly 1.1 million residential loans, or 12.6 percent, were either in the foreclosure process or at least 30 days late at the end of March, a 9 percent drop from last year's first quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association said. The survey, which the group says covers most but not all residential mortgages, showed continuing improvement in the market for Maryland borrowers.

A 757-unit apartment complex off Southbridge Drive will be renovated to provide affordable rental housing, county and federal officials have announced.The 26-building complex, called Valley Brook apartments, has been bought by the Corcoran Jennison Co., a Prince George's County developer.The complex is being renamed Villages at Marley Station.The acquisition and renovation of the complex is being financed, in part, by a mortgage revenue bond issued by the county and purchased by the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae)

What will it take to get consumers off the sidelines to buy more houses and help stimulate the economy? How about a mortgage at 2.99 percent fixed rate for 30 years for anyone who purchases a home before next July 1? Or how about a non-repayable federal tax credit of 10 percent of the home price up to $22,000? Would enticements like these be sufficient to shift you into buying mode? Alternatively, if you preferred a plan that cost the Treasury less, would you go for a mortgage in the 4 percent to 5 percent range, fixed for 30 years, along with a $7,500 tax credit?

The Enterprise Foundation has received a $500,000 grant from the Fannie Mae Foundation for its "neighborhood transformation project" in West Baltimore's Sandtown-Winchester area.The grant will be used as the Enterprise Foundation and the city, in partnership with community leaders, try to improve housing, schools, health care and other services in Sandtown.The gift comes as former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, are to be in Sandtown today to help renovate vacant houses as part of a Habitat for Humanity International project.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer yesterday signed into law a bill that struck a delicate compromise between the companies that buy and sell mortgage-backed securities and the state officials who want freedom to regulate the securities.The bill exempts Maryland from a 1984 federal law intended to enhance the availability and affordability of home mortgages. The Secondary Mortgage Market Enhancement Act (SMMEA) required states to treat government securities, such as those issued by the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae)

Despite all the warnings, many people still invest in things they don't understand.Consider the case of collateralized mortgage obligations, better known as CMOs.They are among the most complex financial tools ever created, and most people who buy them don't really understand how they work, experts say. But that hasn't stopped CMOs from selling like peanuts at a baseball game.As interest rates have fallen, CMOs have become one of the top-selling, fixed-rate investments on the market today.

WASHINGTON -- A Senate panel on securities opened hearings yesterday on the Salomon Brothers treasury bond scandal, hoping to hear about the inner workings of the primary market for the government's $2.3 trillion debt.But out of the 39 participants in the market, only Warren Buffett, the newly installed chief executive of Salomon, showed up.The rest, it emerged in response to irate inquiries by senators, had been subpoenaed by the Securities and Exchange Commission or had forsworn attendance on the advice of legal counsel.

Due to an editing error, an article in Sunday's Maryland section incorrectly reported that Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association, sponsored a homeowners fair Saturday. In fact, the event was sponsored by the Fannie Mae Foundation, a private, nonprofit organization.The Sun regrets the error.The Baltimore Convention Center was packed with would-be homeowners yesterday for a fair geared to minority and low- and middle-income buyers.Seventy area real estate agents, credit and mortgage agencies, nonprofit housing-development groups and offices of the Department of Housing and Community Development set up booths and dispensed advice.

Some first-time homebuyers who cannot qualify for a regular mortgage may be able to get a loan through a program run by the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae).The Community Home Buyer's Program was designed to help low- and moderate-income buyers, according to Geoffrey Smith, director of low- and moderate-income housing for Fannie Mae's Northeast Regional Office, in Philadelphia. He said that typically about two-thirds of the borrowers in such Fannie Mae programs are first-time buyers.

Leonardo Simpser has blunt advice for homebuyers considering a funny-money subprime loan requiring no documentation: Don't! "If you can't afford to buy a house," he says, "don't buy a house." And definitely don't sign up for a mortgage that promises to make the unaffordable affordable. Simpser holds a key position in the American mortgage market. He is managing director of the Hispanic National Mortgage Association (HNMA), a major new funding channel connecting Latinos and other communities with Wall Street and the global capital markets.

Fannie Mae, the largest buyer of American mortgages, said yesterday that it would reduce its earnings by $6.3 billion to correct several years of accounting problems in one of the nation's biggest financial scandals. Federal regulators said they planned to file a lawsuit before the end of the year in an effort to recover millions of dollars from Fannie Mae's former top two executives, whose bonuses were tied to the manipulated earnings. Franklin D. Raines, the former chairman and chief executive, and J. Timothy Howard, who had been chief financial officer, were ousted from the company in December 2004, and investigators have laid much of the blame on their shoulders.

Homebuyers and sellers didn't need another worry, on top of the future of interest rates and the potential for a housing market slowdown. But the news that Fannie Mae - the nation's largest buyer of home loans - was being accused of accounting misdeeds gave some consumers something else to fret about. Will bankers become leery of making new loans? Will interest rates spike? Not likely, say mortgage bankers and other experts. Very little from Fannie Mae's troubles will trickle down to buyers or sellers - and anything that does shouldn't affect their housing plans.

Charles and Silvine Dett of Woodlawn are not civil rights activists or NAACP members, but first thing yesterday they went to NAACP national headquarters ready for action.They've repaired their credit rating and are ready to buy their first home.They were two of about 100 Baltimore-area residents who gathered yesterday at the NAACP's Economic Empowerment Summit to learn about strengthening their financial lives through homeownership, personal investing and business loans.The educational workshops, which are free, are part of a larger program organized by the civil rights organization and financial institutions to teach people the ins and outs of building personal wealth.

Due to an editing error, an article in Sunday's Maryland section incorrectly reported that Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association, sponsored a homeowners fair Saturday. In fact, the event was sponsored by the Fannie Mae Foundation, a private, nonprofit organization.The Sun regrets the error.The Baltimore Convention Center was packed with would-be homeowners yesterday for a fair geared to minority and low- and middle-income buyers.Seventy area real estate agents, credit and mortgage agencies, nonprofit housing-development groups and offices of the Department of Housing and Community Development set up booths and dispensed advice.

In a effort to keep pace with the ever-growing and ever-changing senior population of America, Fannie Mae has put a new wrinkle into its reverse mortgage program that now makes it possible to use that product for purchasing a new home and not being saddled with mortgage payments.The program, "Home Keeper for Home Purchase," was introduced Thursday by Robert J. Sahadi, vice president for product development for Fannie Mae. The product is available in the Baltimore market through Unity Mortgage in Columbia, GMAC Financing and branches of Norwest Mortgage.

MGIC, Fannie Mae agree to a 'first'Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp. (MGIC), the nation's BTC leading provider of private mortgage insurance, and the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the nation's largest source of home mortgage funds, announced last week that MGIC's contract underwriting affiliate will offer mortgage lenders access to Fannie Mae's Desktop Underwriter computer program.Under the agreement, the first of its kind nationwide, mortgage applications approved by MGIC's contract underwriting affiliate using Desktop Underwriter will have Fannie Mae's approval for purchase or securitization.

In managing the Vanguard GNMA Portfolio -- the oldest Government National Mortgage Association fund -- since its inception 12 years ago, Paul G. Sullivan has achieved one of the best performance records among over 1,000 bond funds.Like other leading bond fund managers, the senior vice president of Wellington Management Co. has had to be skillful -- and perhaps a bit lucky -- in deciding which securities to buy and sell as well as when to buy and sell them. Like his peers, he has had to deal with unexpected fluctuations in interest rates while being fully aware that no one can consistently predict them correctly.

WHEN THE reverse mortgage was designed, everyone agreed -- industry, government and consumer groups -- to be especially careful.These loans are aimed at a potentially vulnerable group: the elderly with small incomes but substantial cash locked up in their homes. No one wanted slick salespeople moving in, pocketing some of that cash themselves. So they surrounded these loans with consumer protections.For example, before taking a reverse mortgage you have to go through counseling to have all your options explained.

The remarkable U.S. economy kept chugging in February, adding the most jobs since May, leaving fewer people unemployed and adding to the suspense over future interest rates.The country had 339,000 more jobs last month than it did in January, after adjustments for seasonal rhythms, the Labor Department said yesterday.That's about 100,000 more than many analysts expected, and it suggests that the current economic expansion will blow past its sixth birthday this spring and aim toward a seventh.