October 30th, 2009 9:39 PM by Eric Fang
Today, the congress approved the extension of the GSE high limits(729k for the bayarea) till the end of 2010. Fed and the Obama administration tried to pass the message to the public, the economy can not have a healthy growth without a real estate recovery; the low mortgage rate is essential for the recovery of the real estate market and US economy.
We just had the Freddie Mac Relief program available a few weeks back. This program is mainly for those who have current loan with Freddie Mac, but the borrower can not refi with their current servicing company or current lender(like Chase & HSBC, they don't have wholesale now;like Citi, only limited brokers have access to this lender), so now they are allowed to refi with any lenders who have this program. The rate is expected to be good for LTV<=95%. The rate is only about 0.25% to 0.375% higher with LTV over 105%.
I closed a lot of loans with LTV<=105% recently, both 417k loan & 625k loan. And I just started working with this Freddie Mac Open Access program this week. The whole process will be slow. I will keep you updated with the status of LTV 125% loans.