Justin Perry's Mortgage Blog

A Texas couple recently filed a lawsuit against EMC Mortgage Company for clearing out their house of all belongings, including family heirlooms and food that was in the pantry, while they were away. 

When the family returned home they immediately thought they had been robbed.

The family had purchased the home while it was going into foreclosure back in May of 2008.  It appears that the foreclosure process was never stopped. 

EMC Mortgage Corp was the mortgage holder on the property from the previous owner.  They hired a local company to go and seize all personal property in the house.  They also drilled out locks during the process.  The seized belongings were said to be given to local thrift stores but the family has not had any luck finding them.  They are now suing for the lost property plus compensatory damages.

The bank could not be reached by phone by the attorneys on both sides have been talking and they are now trying to determine whether the bank ordered just the locks to be drilled and if possibly the family's property was removed illegally on behalf of the company asked to drill the locks. 

This story was published in the area's local news.

Demand for prime and fixed-rate mortgages increased during the second half of 2007, according to a report released today by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Fixed-rate loans accounted for 63.6 percent of all first mortgages in the last six months of 2007, compared to just 53.4 percent during the first half of the year.

And 79 percent of all origination dollars were for prime loans, up from 70 percent in the first half of 2007, while 7.5 percent were non-prime (10.4 percent in 1st half) and 7.8 percent were Alt-A (15.8 percent in 1st half).

The MBA attributed the increased popularity of fixed-rate mortgages to a significant decline in long term interest rates, a tighter spread between ARM and fixed rates, and the slowing of subprime lending, which is often accompanied with an adjustable-rate.

Government-insured FHA and VA loans also saw an increase in market share, accounting for 5.7 percent of all origination dollars, up from 3.8 percent six months earlier.

This really should come as no surprise to anyone.  Personally the only number that stands out to me is the percentage of FHA and VA loans originated in that period.   FHA and VA loans account for nearly 20% of the loans we do here at Mortgage Master Inc.  I just hope that the almost 20% of people who did not receive prime loans were at least offered an FHA or a VA loan.