Real Estate Mortgages & Loans

Foreclosure Discussion Forum
Foreclosure – from Wikipedia
Foreclosure.com – Home foreclosures, Pre-closures, Bank Foreclosures
How to Avoid Foreclosure – from the US Department of Housing & Urban Development
Foreclosure Homes - Foreclosures Listings, source of Banks Foreclosures
Foreclosures – Foreclosure listings, foreclosure homes
Can Refinance Stop A Home Foreclosure? – from Global Investment Institute
Foreclosure Tips & Traps – from 19 Action News
Foreclosure Information Library – from RealtyTrac
Tips for Stopping & Preventing Foreclosure
Tips for Buying Bank Foreclosure Houses
Tips on Buying Foreclosure Properties – from Real Estate @ AOL
Inside Foreclosure – Foreclosure Tips & Suggestions
Foreclosure Info & Tips – a good listing of articles, from Fixer Uppers Foreclosures
Foreclosure Tips, Information & Resources from Prevent My Foreclosure

Mortgage Investors - USA

Fannie Mae (FNMA)
Freddie Mac (FHLMC)
Ginnie Mae (GNMA)
U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Reverse Mortgages

All about Reverse Mortgages – from AARP
Reverse Mortgages – Get the facts, from Federal Trade Commission, USA
ReverseMortgage - This site is for consumers interested in learning more about reverse mortgages. The information on this site is provided by the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA).
Reverse Mortgage – from Wikipedia
Reverse Mortgages – Top 10 Things to Know – US Dept of Housing & Urban Development
Reverse Mortgage FAQ – from NEA Member Benefits Division
Reverse Mortgage Frequently Asked Questions & Answers – from Financial Freedom
Reverse Mortgages for Seniors – from Fannie Mae
Reverse Mortgage FAQ – from Caregiver
National Center for Home Equity Conversion - independent nonprofit national organization specializing exclusively in reverse mortgage education & analysis
Reverse Mortgage Guide

Housing & Home Loans

Virginia Center for Housing Research - http://www.vchr.vt.edu/fairhousing.html

http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/ - HEARTH Home Economics Collection @ Cornell University - HEARTH is a core electronic collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines. Titles published between 1850 and 1950 were selected and ranked by teams of scholars for their great historical importance. The first phase of this project focused on books published between 1850 and 1925 and a small number of journals. Future phases of the project will include books published between 1926 and 1950, as well as additional journals. The full text of these materials, as well as bibliographies and essays on the wide array of subjects relating to Home Economics, are all freely accessible on this site. This is the first time a collection of this scale and scope has been made available

http://www.110mb.com/forum/home-loan-research-t411.0.html - Home Loan Research - from 110 MB Discussion Forum

http://www.aph.gov.au/Library/pubs/RN/2006-07/07rn08.htm - Home loan affordability—measurement and trends - Statistics and Mapping Section - Nov 2006 - The most widely reported measures of home loan affordability in Australia are the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) Home Loan Affordability Indicator, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia–Housing Industry Association (CBA–HIA) Housing Affordability Index, and the BIS Shrapnel Home Loan Affordability Index. Each of these indexes measures affordability with respect to new loans only. This Research Note examines each of the above affordability measures and their limitations. The Note also looks at the trend in home loan affordability over the past 20 years and shows how the sensitivity of home loan affordability to interest rate changes has increased gradually over time. The Note, however, does not examine the contribution of individual factors to changes in home loan affordability.

http://www.lendersmark.org/ - LendersMark.org - Consumer Lending and Personal Credit Guide Site Navigation - LendersMark.org is a consumer credit resource with a growing collection of bad credit loans, debt consolidation, home loans, and other mortgage-related articles. If you are a mortgage expert, personal lending officer, or operate a credit organization, we encourage you to submit articles that may be of particular interest to our readers. With our simple loan form you can get up to 4 competitive offers to refinance your home at a much lower rate, obtain cash from your home's equity for any purpose, or consolidate bills and high interest debt.

Home Loan Protection Act: A Model State Statute - Research Report - AARP Public Policy Institute - November 2001 - Subprime mortgage lending has expanded from a $35 billion industry in 1994 to a $140 billion industry in 2000. Subprime mortgages (loans granted to borrowers with non-prime or below “A” rated credit) currently represent 13% of total mortgage originations, an increase from 4% in 1994. With this growth has come increasing concern about – and growing evidence of – abusive practices in the subprime lending market, such as “flipping” and the inappropriate financing of points and fees. Abusive subprime lenders often target older homeowners who frequently have substantial equity in their homes, and who are more likely to live in homes in need of repair and less likely than younger homeowners to do the home repair work themselves. This AARP Public Policy Institute model state statute – written by Mike Calhoun of the Self-Help Credit Union and Margot Saunders, Elizabeth Renuart and Mark Benson of the National Consumer Law Center – is designed to protect borrowers from abusive practices while maintaining homeowners' access to credit. Read the full PDF report from this page - http://www.aarp.org/research/legis-polit/legislation/aresearch-import-174-D17346.html

Home Equity News blog - http://home-equity-news.org/ - the blog has the following categories - Buying Home; Debt Consolidation; Foreclosure; Home Equity; Home Inspection; Home insurance; Home Loan; Home Refinancing; Mortgage

http://www.ncoa.org/content.cfm?sectionID=11&detail=1659 - Trends in Reverse Mortgages - A New Option For Senior Homeowners - Just a few years ago reverse mortgages weren’t on most consumers’ radar screens. But as the industry has educated consumers about these unique loans, their popularity has grown tremendously in a short time. The number of people taking out reverse mortgages has soared over the last five years, climbing from a loan volume of fewer than 6,000 loans annually prior to fiscal year 2000, to over 48,000 just in 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), says this article from National Council on Aging

As Home Prices Cool Down, Homeowners Temper Their Optimism - December, 2006, Pew Research - Despite a record drop this past year in the median sales price of existing homes, more than eight-in-ten homeowners expect the value of their homes to go up either "a little" (55%) or "a lot" (26%) in the future. However, these anticipated levels of future gains are not nearly as great as the gains that homeowners say they've experienced in recent years. Read more from this Pew Research report - http://pewresearch.org/pubs/322/as-home-prices-cool-down-homeowners-temper-their-optimism

Mortgage Research

Mortgage Education & Research @ MoneyNet UK - Moneynet offers a free mortgage finder service, giving users the pertinent information needed to make an informed decision when looking for a mortgage. This online service is backed up with offline support should the user need further reassurance
Refinancing Your Mortgage - Most people consider refinancing their home mortgage to take advantage of lower interest rates and reduce their monthly mortgage payment. Refinancing a mortgage means paying off your old mortgage and signing a contract for a new loan. Whether to refinance your mortgage is a difficult question to answer, and should be based on specific considerations. Read more from this Virginia Tech page.
Choosing the Best Mortgage - Selecting a mortgage can be perplexing, frustrating, and time-consuming. Mortgage lenders offer a variety of loan packages under different names with different interest rates, up-front costs, and fine print terms, all of which can change frequently. You need a lot of information to get a mortgage that best fits your needs at a competitive price. This file explains a variety of types of mortgages: fixed rate, adjustable rate, and alternative rate, graduated payment, pledged account, balloon, renegotiated rate, growing equity, shared appreciation, seller take-back, wraparounds, buy-downs, FHA, VA, and FmHA. It also discusses payment formats (regular, bimonthly, biweekly) and points. From NC State University
Understanding Mortgage Markets - from Harvard University - The recent rise in foreclosures suggests that some borrowers are taking on debt that they have little or no capacity to repay, selecting products that are not suitable for their needs, or signing up for mortgages that they don't understand. Two reports by Harvard University researchers contend that these are just some of the inevitable consequences of an increasingly complex mortgage market and a regulatory system that has failed to adapt to the dramatic changes that have transformed the mortgage lending landscape in recent years. Funded by a Ford Foundation grant to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, this new research examines the behavior of mortgage market participants and the emergence of new mortgage delivery channels linked to the rapid growth of higher-risk subprime mortgages. Two papers are presented in this section: (1) Understanding Mortgage Market Behavior: Creating Good Mortgage Options for all Americans Ren S. Essene and William Apgar, and (2) Mortgage Market Channels and Fair Lending: An Analysis of HMDA Data William Apgar, Amal Bendimerad and Ren S. Essene
Public Information Guide Answers for "Should you refinance your home mortgage?" - Federal Trade Commission - Advice & Articles, School of Library & Information Science - University of Southern Carolina
Refinancing Your Mortgage - Work Sheet from Virginia Tech
Will Reverse Mortgages Rescue the Baby Boomers? PDF Abstract - Many of today’s workers are at risk of having insufficient resources in retirement. The reason for this gloomy picture is a rapidly changing retirement landscape defined by a rising Social Security retirement age, a sharp decline in traditional pensions coupled with modest 401(k) balances, low saving rates, and longer lifespans. However, one potential bright spot is housing equity, which has grown rapidly in recent years and is the largest non-pension asset for most households. The home value for the typical household approaching retirement was $200,000 in 2004 — up from $139,000 in 2001.1 This brief examines the extent to which homeowners can count on housing wealth to support their consumption in retirement. The first section introduces reverse mortgages as an option for accessing housing wealth in retirement. The second section describes trends in the reverse mortgage market. The third section explains what factors determine how much a homeowner can borrow through a reverse mortgage. The fourth section hig hlights the impact of changes in interest rates on reverse mortgages. Given the sensitivity to interest rates, households planning for retirement should be careful not to overestimate the potential of home equity. A research paper from Boston College, Sep 2006 - Read the full paper from here – PDF
Reverse America - information site on reverse mortgage education

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