My 86-year old Dad caught me taking a nap over the weekend. Not one to miss an opportunity, he said, “You practically invented lazy. People should have to call you and ask for the rights to the word “lazy” before they use it.” That’s my Dad…

Lock Desk personnel are seldom lazy, and in fact are often the unsung heroes of mortgage banking since they are in the frontline on pricing and program issues. Last week they had a little more time on their hands, since the volume of mortgage applications filed last week fell a seasonally adjusted 2.5% from the week before. Refinancing was down 1.4%, and purchases were down 4.7%. The MBAA survey, which covers about half of all US retail residential production, supports the Wall Street belief that origination, and loan sales, have decreased lately.

The Fed and mortgage servicers continue to buy mortgages, and the originators, Asia, hedge funds and money managers are doing the selling. Among all applications, refi’s currently account for almost 73%! This leads to a question: What is the difference between $1.4 trillion and $1.3 trillion? Well, besides $100 billion, it is the difference between what Fannie thinks the residential mortgage market is going to be in 2010 versus Wells Fargo’s estimate. Either number is down significantly from this year’s $2 trillion+ year. Are mortgage companies, vendors, etc. planning for this? Or ignoring it and being ever hopeful?

With all of the talk/conjecture/rumors about HUD delaying the mandatory use of the new GFE for 120 days, it is a good opportunity to recall what a Good Faith Estimate actually covers: http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/ramh/res/resindus.cfm

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