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Baltimore Home Prices Rose Nearly 7% in January


 By Natalie Sherman
The Baltimore Sun
February 13, 2017


Baltimore area home prices continued to climb in January, as steady demand and fewer foreclosures pushed a streak of year-over-year gains into the 11th month.
The median home price in the metro region last month was $234,950, up 6.8% from a year earlier, according to a monthly report based on data from the MRIS listing service.
The gains come as Baltimore's housing market appears to be shaking off several years of sluggish appreciation.
Excluding distressed sales such as foreclosures, the median price increased 5.4% from a year ago to $268,750.
That was the biggest year-over-year gain for standard sales in more than three years, according to the report, which was provided by ShowingTime, a firm that provides market statistics to the residential real estate industry.

Read more here. 

--National Mortgage News

Merger announced between Kopernik Bank and St. Casimir's Savings Bank

St. Casimir's Savings Bank will become part of Kopernik Bank under a merger announced Monday that will create a single institution with about $180 million in assets. Both are Maryland-chartered mutual savings banks. Kopernick, located on Eastern Avenue, was founded in 1924 as Kopernik Building and Loan Association of Baltimore City and specializes in personal and business banking, home loans and commercial real estate lending.

 St. Casimir's was started as a building and loan institution in 1911 by a group of businessmen who would meet in a tavern on Fait Avenue to grant lines of credit, home loans and business financing to immigrants. The bank has four branches in Baltimore, on Eastern Avenue, Erdman Avenue, North Point Road and Foster Avenue in Canton.

"The combination of our two institutions will allow us to better serve our communities," said Timothy Prindle, president and CEO of Kopernik Bank, in the announcement.

Under the merger agreement, St. Casimir's CEO and president, Ronald D. Jasion, will become a senior vice president of Kopernik. Two directors of St. Casimir's will join Kopernik's board of directors.

 Connection Between Tax Refunds and Mortgage Delinquencies

by: Jann Swanson

Apparently we aren't all procrastinators.  Black Knight Financial Services looked at Internal Revenue Service (IRS) filing statistics and how they relate to loan level mortgage performance data for its current edition of Mortgage Monitor and found that 40 percent of tax filers are in and done by the first week in March.  In fact, half of that number or one in five have finished and filed their returns within the first two weeks of tax season.

The company says incentive plays a role in this diligence as Americans who file early are more likely to be expecting a refund.  On average, they also receive a larger refund than those who file later.  The average refund for those filing on or before February 5^th was $3,400, more than 35 percent higher than the refund for those filing in early April and nearly 50 per higher than those filing the last week of the season.  In fact, IRS has already distributed most tax refunds well before the April 15 tax deadline.

So, what does this have to do with mortgages?  Black Knight says if history repeats, nearly 300,000 more borrowers can be expected to bring their delinquent mortgages current in February and March than in a typical month, and changes are they are using their tax refunds to do so.  Black Knight Data & Analytics Executive Vice President Ben Graboske said, "We see this increase in cures across the delinquency and foreclosure spectrum, but it is most pronounced in the early and moderate stages of delinquency. This makes sense, in that a tax refund may be sufficient to pay a few months of past-due mortgage payments, but is likely not enough to bring a homeowner out of severe delinquency. Likewise, the most pronounced impact was seen among FHA/VA borrowers, who might be expected to have less cash reserves on hand and therefore be more dependent upon the infusion of funds during tax refund season to pay down late payments. All things being equal, there's no reason to expect this tax season to be any different."

Read more here at Mortgage News Daily.

Friday Rate Update

30-Year Mortgage Rates Hold Steady 

The rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.19 percent this week, unchanged from the previous week's rate. At this time last year, the 30-year FRM rate averaged 3.72 percent.

This week's 15-year FRM rate averaged 3.41 percent, up from last week's 3.4 percent. A year ago, the 15-year FRM rate averaged 3.01 percent.   

---ABA Daily Newsbytes

Freddie Mac on the Economy

Grappling with Uncertainty

Outlook | January 30, 2017

The U.S. economy is now in its eighth year of expansion and the housing market is coming off its best year in a decade. Prospects remain good for future growth. However, uncertainty weighs on our Outlook for 2017 and 2018. We must grapple with uncertainty about fiscal policy, foreign investments in U.S. real estate, and the size of the mortgage market.

Uncertainty about fiscal policy

After the U.S. presidential election, expectations about economic policy have shifted, particularly expectations about fiscal policy. We still do not know all the parameters of fiscal policy changes, but we assume an expansionary policy will boost both growth and inflation over the next two years and corporate tax reform will increase long-run potential economic growth by about two-tenths of a percentage point.
President Trump’s tax proposals include increasing standard deductions and flattening marginal personal income tax rates. Increasing the standard deduction will reduce the number of households who find it advantageous to itemize deductions. This will reduce the homeownership incentives that comes from the mortgage interest deduction. Changing marginal tax rates shifts the attractiveness for homeownership among those who itemize. The Tax Policy Center estimates the increase in the standard deduction will reduce the number of filers who itemize by 60 percent from 45 million to 27 million.
As an illustrative example, the average monthly cost of owning a $250,000 house financed by a 4.25 percent 30-year fixed-rate mortgage increases by approximately $200/month for a borrower who no longer itemizes deductions.¹ Reducing marginal tax rates will also increase the cost of homeownership, but by a smaller amount ($75/month or less, varying by tax bracket).
The extent to which tax policy changes will impact housing is hard to determine. Reducing taxes may boost income and general economic efficiency. But as we illustrated above, shifting tax policy may increase the cost of homeownership. The net impact on housing markets is uncertain.

Read more here.

Friday Rate Update

Mortgage Rates Rise for the First Time in 2017 

The rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.19 percent this week, up from the previous week's 4.09 percent. At this time last year, the 30-year FRM rate averaged 3.79 percent.

This week's 15-year FRM rate averaged 3.4 percent, up from last week's 3.34 percent. A year ago, the 15-year FRM averaged 3.07 percent.

--ABA Daily Newsbytes