PMI Revises Distressed Housing Market List
Effective June 1st PMI, a major mortgage insurance company, has added to its list of distressed housing market areas. They have also divided them into "Level 1" and "Level 2" segments. Given that the options for obtaining combination first/second mortgages to avoid large down payments have all but disappeared, how much mortgage insurance companies are willing to insure is becoming increasingly important for those seeking to purchase or refinance with minimal down payment/equity.
Areas listed under Level 1 are eligible for mortgage insurance up to a 95% loan-to-value ratio.
"Level 1 is for those... areas where we anticipate the downturn to be less severe based on underlying fundamentals, including unemployment trends, home price volatility, etc."
Areas listed under Level 2 are eligible for mortgage insurance once the loan-to-value has been REDUCED by 5% of the maximum allowable for the particular loan program being used. And in any event, the loan-to-value cannot exceed 90%.
"Level 2 is for those... areas that are projected to continue to experience more significant economic and/or housing downturns and are expected to take longer to improve."
Oregon and Washington state are not largely affected by this yet, with one exception. Bend, Oregon is on the Level 2 list. So however bleak it looks to the average person driving around Portland seeing "For Sale" signs on seemingly every third house, PMI doesn't think we have it so bad -- we'll see how it goes over the next several months.
5 comments:
Thanks for sharing this. It's pretty eye-opening. The entire state of California is on the list, they don't even bother listing cities.
Thankfully my state (NC) is not on there yet. We are trying to sell our house.
That was a great post. I couldn't agree more with your sentiments. Thanks for the effort.
Today I was searching in Google for same matter I found your post in Google first page I helped lot . Thanks for post....
In the past interest rates have been in the double digits, so there isn't a lot to complain about yet, but I suspect a lot of people are wondering why they didn't refinance when they had the chance.
The next time I come to this blog I will be sure to make better points. Thanks for this post.
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