Naples Real Estate News 02/28/08
The real estate news today is more from national perspective than from the Naples, Bonita Springs and Estero focus, but still has an impact on the local real estate markets.
MORTGAGES - The federal regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said yesterday that it would lift restrictions on the amount of mortgages the Government Sponsored Enterprises can hold on their books, effective Saturday. The move should ease turmoil in the mortgage market. Per Wikipedia -
"The government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) are a group of financial services corporations created by the United States Congress. Their function is to enhance the flow of credit to targeted sectors of the economy and to make those segments of the capital market more efficient and transparent. The desired effect of the GSEs is to enhance the availability and reduce the cost of credit to the targeted borrowing sectors: agriculture; home finance; and education. Congress created the first GSE in 1916 with the creation of the Farm Credit System; it initiated GSEs in the home finance segment of the economy with the creation of the Federal Home Loan Banks in 1932; and it targeted education when it chartered Sallie Mae in 1972 (although Congress allowed Sallie Mae to relinquish its government sponsorship and become a fully private institution via legislation in 1995). The residential mortgage borrowing segment is by far the largest of the borrowing segments in which the GSEs operate. Together, the three mortgage finance GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks) have several trillion dollars of on-balance sheet assets."
COUNTRYWIDE - A federal lawsuit initiated by a Boynton Beach homeowner seeks class action status against Countrywide, accusing the company of overcharging homeowners facing foreclosure through “inflated, unverifiable or false” charges. The mortgage note says Countrywide should be “paid back” for costs, but litigants say that isn’t the same as “make a profit.”
ECONOMY - The U.S. economy skidded to a near halt in the final quarter of last year, with the nation’s gross domestic product increasing at a scant 0.6 percent pace, according to the Commerce Department. For all of 2007, the economy grew by 2.2 percent, the weakest showing in five years.
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