Housing, Mortgages, & Money

Two new recent REIT IPOs launched in June. Government Properties Income Trust (NYSE:GOV) began trading earlier this month. The company priced 10 mm shares at $20.00 per share. The company is a subsidiary of HRPT Properties Trust, an office REIT based in Massachusetts. HRPT owns 49.9% of GOV.

Would-be home buyers caught a break this week as rates for 30-year home loans fell back after soaring to the highest level in seven months.  According to Freddie Mac (NYSE:MAC) the average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 5.38% this week, down from 5.59% a week earlier.  However Freddie Mac shares can't get above 70 Cents, gotta love U.S. Government intervention.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate jumped 0.32% point in the June 5 week to 5.57%. That was nearly a full point, about 100 basis points, above the record low rate of 4.61% in March.  Demand for new loans is even worse, bottom line -- get your refinance on if you haven't already.

Burn baby burn, in the first quarter, almost half of the overall increase in the start of foreclosures was due to the increase in prime, fixed-rate loans, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). At the end of the fourth quarter, 2.4% of prime mortgages were seriously delinquent, more than double the 1.1% at the end of March 2008, according to a report by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision.

Reverse mortgages could be the next subprime mortgage product to experience rapid growth while taking advantage of a vulnerable segment of the population, top U.S. bank regulator John Dugan said on Monday.  Yet another reason to bet against the U.S. Housing Sector recovering.