By KRIS HUDSON and CRAIG KARMIN

Starwood Capital Group is in talks to buy seven U.S. shopping malls from Westfield Group

for more than $1 billion, a deal that would mark the latest in a flurry of big-ticket acquisitions of retail property.

Starwood’s talks with Westfield aren’t yet in the final stages and still could collapse, according to people familiar with the matter.

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CoStar

Blackstone recently agreed to sell its stake in Shoppers World, Framingham, Mass., to DDR.

The discussions come as retail property continues to rebound from the economic downturn while fending off competition from online shopping. In addition, buyers are emboldened by low interest rates and the increasing availability of financing, notably from the resurgent market for securitized mortgages.

In another recent deal, private-equity firm Blackstone Group LP

this month agreed to sell its majority stake in 30 U.S. shopping centers to DDR Corp.

for $1.46 billion. Meantime, Blackstone also is preparing for a likely initial public offering of its strip-center owner, Brixmor Property Group, by the end of this year.

Retail was one of the last property sectors to begin recovering from the downturn. Occupancy rates and rents showed little increase as consumers held back, retailers contracted and Internet retail expanded.

But the outlook has improved lately. The average vacancy rate for retail properties in the top 63 U.S. markets was 6.8% in the first quarter, down from a recent high of 7.5% in 2010, according to CoStar Group.

Construction of new retail space remains relatively low, allowing landlords to fill vacancies with restaurants, health clubs and expanding retailers such as Ulta Salon, Cosmetics Fragrance Inc.

“Sales productivity has come back with a vengeance,” said Cedrik Lachance, an analyst with Green Street Advisors Inc. “The occupancy rate at better properties is either back to or in excess of the previous peak in 2007. So you have an industry that is far healthier than is commonly believed.”

Commercial-real-estate sales in all categories have been gaining thanks to the strengthening economy, rising values and low interest rates. Last year, deal volume hit $294 billion, compared with $229 billion in 2011 and $66 billion in 2009, according to Real Capital Analytics. Retail deals in 2012 totaled $55 billion, up 25% from 2011.

Buyers of retail property have been taking advantage of debt financing available from the sale of commercial mortgage-backed securities, a market that has been gathering steam. Of the $34.1 billion of commercial mortgages securitized so far this year, 32% have been backed by retail properties, more than any other commercial property type, according to Trepp LLC.

Westfield, based in Sydney, owns stakes in 100 malls world-wide. Since 2010, the company has been focusing on its highest-performing malls, selling its mediocre properties. Last year, Starwood acquired a 90% stake in seven U.S. malls from Westfield for $1.05 billion.

Blackstone’s public sale of Brixmor is expected to be one of the largest real-estate IPOs since the financial crisis.

The New York-based private-equity firm values the business around $13 billion, say people familiar with the matter. Brixmor owns 90 million square feet of space at approximately 525 properties, making it the largest wholly owned shopping-center portfolio in the U.S.

Blackstone has spent hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading the shopping centers, much of that to attract anchor tenants, such as Wal-Mart,

Safeway

and TJ Maxx.

While Blackstone has added about 50 centers to the portfolio and shed about 75, the bulk of Brixmor’s assets were acquired in 2011 in a $9.4 billion purchase of Australian landlord Centro Properties Group’s

U.S. operations.

In that deal, Blackstone assumed $8 billion of debt and eventually refinanced it. Brixmor has reduced some of that debt, but it isn’t clear how much debt the company currently has.

Write to Kris Hudson at kris.hudson@wsj.com and Craig Karmin at craig.karmin@wsj.com

Article source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323463704578497380084930360.html?mod=residential_real_estate

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Article source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323463704578497181555081610.html?mod=residential_real_estate

By PAULO TREVISANI

RIO DE JANEIRO—Amid numerous construction projects under way in this city that is racing to get ready to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, a developer is hoping to break ground soon on the first Donald Trump-branded project in Brazil: a $2.5 billion office complex.

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Aflalo Gasperini

Developers hope two of the five buildings planned for Trump Towers Rio, shown in a rendering, will be completed by 2016.

But, with the Brazilian growth engine low on steam, the office market may not cooperate.

A group led by developer MRP International has licensed Mr. Trump’s name for the complex, called Trump Towers Rio and designed to be the largest office property in Rio with about 4.8 million square feet of space. MRP wants to finish the first two of five planned buildings by 2016 “when the whole world will be looking to Rio,” says Stefan Ivanov, the company’s chief executive for Brazil.

But the office market has been cooling lately after years of strong growth. In the first quarter, the amount of occupied office space had its steepest decline of almost a decade, according to CBRE Group Inc.

There was about 170,000 square feet of such “negative absorption” during the three-month period.

By comparison, in 2012 the amount of occupied space increased by about 1.7 million square feet. “All depends on the reactivation of the economy,” says the head of CBRE’s Rio office, Alberto Robalinho. “We may have an increase in vacancy” if the economy doesn’t pick up, he says.

When plans for the Trump project were announced late last year, the developer said construction would begin in late 2013. Now, it would be “safer to say first quarter next year” because some permits are still to be issued, Mr. Ivanov says.

Still, Mr. Ivanov says he isn’t concerned about recent trends in the office market. He points out that even if office vacancy increases, the city still has a shortage of the type of high-quality space that leading companies want the most.

Other developers also are trying to capitalize on that demand. CBRE estimates that about 2.8 million square feet of new office space will enter the market this year alone.

But Mr. Ivanov says that the Trump connection will give his project the edge. “The Trump Organization provided the brand and…is giving us guidelines on how to build,” he says.

Mr. Trump is being represented in Brazil by son Donald Trump Jr. The younger Mr. Trump has been meeting with government officials and potential tenants and points out that his father’s brand carries “great weight” in Latin America.

So far the project hasn’t started marketing space partly because it hasn’t received the necessary government permits. Mr. Ivanov says his group plans to break ground whether or not there is any preleasing. “We have the funds,” he says, but declines to be more specific.

The other equity investors include Brazilian developer Even Construtora e Incorporadora

and British finance firm Salamanca Group. Trump Organization isn’t investing any money in the project.

The five 38-story towers are to be built in Porto Maravilha, an area near the docks that the city has been revitalizing. The city is planning some $10 billion in improvements including a new train service, and nearly half of that budget is targeted at Porto Maravilha.

Today, the area is noisy with construction activity. Contrasts are beginning to emerge between the structures under way and the spray-painted, rundown warehouses that have shed layers of stucco. In some places, sidewalks go from cracked to modern to disappearing altogether within a few blocks.

Trump Organization for years has been licensing Mr. Trump’s name to developers throughout the world. Other projects currently under development include the Trump Tower Manila, the Trump Tower Punta del Este and Trump Towers Pune.

MRP is a Bulgaria-based developer, and the Trump project in Rio is its first foray into Brazil. The firm was formed in 2003 by two New Zealand-born entrepreneurs, Myles Summerfield and Richard Macdonald.

Once the economic capital of South America, Rio de Janeiro now is recovering from a slump that began early last century, as it watched another Brazilian town, São Paulo, expand as the country’s main business hub. The coup de grace came in the 1960s, when Brazil’s government moved out of Rio and into the new capital, Brasilia, hundreds of miles inland.

For decades the city lived on its past glory, as many of its historical buildings deteriorated and organized crime took over the enormous slums, or favelas, that cover Rio’s many slopes with mostly unplanned and unlicensed homes.

But Rio along with the rest of Brazil has benefited from the oil discoveries off Brazil’s coastline, as well as the country being named to host the Olympics and soccer’s 2014 World Cup.

Brazil’s growth rate hit 7.5% in 2010, but that pace cooled in the past two years. In 2012, the country’s gross domestic product rose only 0.9%. This year, projections hover around 2.8%.

“The economy needs to be strong, companies need to be hiring to demand more space,” CBRE’s Mr. Robalinho says. With forecasters predicting continued slow growth in 2013, “this year we will see who will have the capacity” to carry on the large projects now planned for the Porto Maravilha area, he says.

—Paul Kiernan contributed to this article.

Article source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323463704578495312522065212.html?mod=residential_real_estate

Treasuries spent most of the overnight session in weaker territory before beginning a grind lower in yield in the few hours leading up to the domestic open. Weaker Yen and Japanese government bonds continued to offer pressure during Asian hours, but European markets didn’t play their normal role of reversing said weakness.

German Bunds opened weaker and never made up much ground as peripheral markets tightened (read: Spain and Italy yields fell vs German yields, and anything positive for the periphery has tended to be negative for the core). Lower volume due to holidays in Europe greased the skids for volatility, but the first domestic trading of the day reversed the losses

Treasuries turned positive just before 8am and continued lower to 1.92 just before 9am. They’ve since bounced up to 1.93 as the day gets underway. MBS opened flat to Friday’s close and are now up 6 ticks at 102-23.

Stepping back a few feet and filtering out a relative inconsequential overnight session, you could view this morning’s market as a moderate push back against a volatile Friday afternoon. That said, with no data on the calendar and plenty of speculation time ahead of Wednesday’s FOMC Minutes (and Bernanke testimony in the morning), volatility can’t be ruled out. For now though, confirming a supportive bounce at Friday’s lows is “so far so good” with respect to the ongoing set-up of the pre-FOMC range.

Article source: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/mortgage_rates/blog/309361.aspx

If you’re like me and rest your weary eyes each night by reading the Fair Housing Act of 1968, then you don’t need to be told that the act “prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, or financing of dwellings and in other housing-related activities on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin”. It would also come as no surprise to you that the good people over at HUD are chartered with the authority and responsibility for interpreting and enforcing the Fair Housing Act, with the power to make rules for implementation. The Act does not specify a standard for proving a discriminatory effect (disparate impact) violation. Notwithstanding this statutory omission, HUD and the eleven federal appellate courts that have ruled on this issue agree that practices with unjustified discriminatory effects violate the Act. To clarify, HUD issued a final rule formalizing its long held recognition of discriminatory effect liability under the Fair Housing Act and a three-part burden-shifting test for determining whether a given practice has an unjustified discriminatory effect. Don’t tell me how it ends, I’m only on page 11,464 sub-section C, and I know this is “old” material but I am asked about it periodically, so here is the link: http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/press/press_releases_media_advisories/2013/HUDNo.13-022.

And compliance just keeps on, keeping’ on.  Recently the CFPB laid out loan originator compensation restrictions, and dropped “Zero-Zero Requirements”. Although the loan originator compensation rule finalized by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in January passed without as much fanfare as the Bureau’s QM rule, the new mandate will result in significant challenges to the mortgage lending industry’s compliance efforts. The CFPB’s ‘Final Rule’ answers some of the questions left open by the previous loan originator compensation rule implemented by the Federal Reserve Board in 2010, prior to the transfer of Truth-in-Lending Act authority from the Board to the Bureau.

Of particular interest to lenders, brokers and loan originators are answers to the following questions: what constitutes a proxy for a loan’s terms? When may a loan originator grant concessions to a borrower? What bonuses may a creditor pay its loan originators? KL Gates has an outstanding write-up which can be found on their site.   But we could easily be sitting here a year from now, trying to remind ourselves that the intentions of LO comp changes are good (to prevent borrowers from being guided into a bad program) but the execution and changes leave a wake of confusion.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has finalized revisions to its remittance transfers rule (Reg E, for all those keeping score at home) and set October 28, 2013, as the rule’s new effective date. While not entirely eliminating the requirement for remittance transfer providers to disclose recipient institution fees, the revised final rule does recognize some business realities and restricts the scope of that requirement and makes other favorable changes. Interested parties should look no further than CFPB’s own site for complete Reg. E amendments: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/remittances-transfer-rule-amendment-to-regulation-e/

One hears more and more about CFPB “victories” in consumer compliance claims, and fines levied against banking institutions, but where does the money go once the check has been cut? Earlier this month in our government’s own blog (“Our government has a blog?” Yes, our government has a blog!) the Federal Register the CFPB issued a final rule (final, final?) that establishes a Consumer Financial Civil Penalty Fund into which the agency will deposit any civil penalty it obtains against any person in any judicial or administrative action under Federal consumer financial laws. Money in the Civil Penalty Fund may be used for payments to the victims of activities for which civil penalties have been imposed under Federal consumer financial laws.

Today from 12PM to 1PM EDT, Ballard Spahr will put on a webinar where the group will cover the CFPB and the Land Sales Full Disclosure Act (ILSA). Topics of discussion will be CFPB investigations, including how the CFPB identifies targets, and the investigation process and the CFPB’s involvement in ILSA cases. Participation in the webinar is by registration only, and the process starts by visiting its site.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issued its list of state nonmember banks recently evaluated for compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The list covers evaluation ratings that the FDIC assigned to institutions in February 2013. The CRA is a 1977 law intended to encourage insured banks and thrifts to meet local credit needs, including those of low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, consistent with safe and sound operations. As part of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA), Congress mandated the public disclosure of an evaluation and rating for each bank or thrift that undergoes a CRA examination on or after July 1, 1990. A list of the recent evaluated banks can be found HERE.

On to some personnel, state, agency, and investor updates. As always, it is best to read the actual bulletin for the nitty-gritty details.

Congrats to Brian Gould, United Guaranty Corporation’s new Chief Operating Officer (COO). He’s been with UG for fourteen years, and now oversees underwriting, claims, loss mitigation, customer support, and business analytics, as well as the company’s service operations and enterprise services groups. Gould also has functional oversight of these areas for United Guaranty’s international businesses.

Freddie Mac has opened applications for its new Streamlined Modification program, making it available to all eligible borrowers immediately, six weeks earlier than originally planned. The company said the early implementation was made to expedite financial relief for potentially thousands of distressed families. Under the program, originally set to begin on July 1, servicers are required to send modification offers to borrowers who are at least 90 days, but no more than 720 days, delinquent on mortgages that are at least 12 months old and meet other eligibility criteria. Eligible borrowers are not required to submit documentation and the modification becomes permanent if the borrower makes on-time payments during the three month trial period.

(This is interesting. Freddie is planning to charge approved seller services essentially “non-usage” fees if the lender doesn’t service enough or sell enough production.) “We are introducing new Seller/Servicer activity thresholds in Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide (Guide) Bulletin 2013-8, and a new fee that will be assessed if a Seller/Servicer does not meet at least one of these thresholds. This new requirement supports our risk management efforts and offsets the costs incurred to maintain our Seller/Servicers and monitor their compliance with our eligibility requirements. To give you time to prepare for this new requirement, the Low Activity Fee will not be assessed until January 1, 2014. New Seller/Servicer activity thresholds and Low Activity Fee. Beginning January 1, 2014, Seller/Servicers that do not meet one of the following activity thresholds will be assessed the Low Activity Fee of $7,500: Sell mortgages to Freddie Mac with an aggregate unpaid principal balance (UPB) greater than $5 million during the immediately preceding calendar year, or Service, or be a servicing agent for, mortgages for Freddie Mac with an aggregate UPB of at least $25 million as of December 31 of the immediately preceding calendar year. New Seller/Servicers will not be subject to these thresholds until they have been approved for a full calendar year.”

The state of Montana recently revised the Montana Mortgage Act to bring it into compliance with federal rules. These revisions include changes to mortgage broker/lender licensing requirements updates to licensing exceptions and educational requirements, as well as new additions to the reasons for license denial. These amendments shall be effective on October 1, 2013.

Caliber Funding, LLC introduced its new correspondent lending channel, which will expand its production capacity and allow it to provide more competitive product offerings to customers. As previously announced, on January 17, 2013, Caliber and Vericrest Financial entered into a merger agreement. Caliber’s entry into the correspondent lending channel supports the combined company’s goal to create a full-service, consumer-focused residential mortgage banking organization offering both loan origination and loan servicing solutions. Caliber’s new correspondent lending channel will enable the Company to leverage its state-of-the-art technology to provide multiple product offerings and excellent customer service to an even broader customer base. Caliber is also investing in two fulfillment centers in Florence, South Carolina and Irving, Texas to ensure efficient and exemplary customer service for its partners and customers.

As lenders are staring at a month end next week, rates have not come back down and funding departments are waiting for the inevitable funding crunch. And don’t look for rates to come back down, as the U.S. economy seems to be doing pretty well: the index of leading economic indicators rose, as did retail sales, consumer sentiment, and housing permits. Since the release of the stronger-than-expected April Employment report on May 3, investor sentiment toward bonds has turned more negative. Remember, the Fed has talked about how QE3, and the bond buying program which holds rates artificially low, is dependent on the labor market. So in spite of the bad news that might ordinarily push rates lower (Europe being in a recession, first-time unemployment claims rising, manufacturing activity declining, zero inflation, housing starts weakening, and industrial production capacity utilization dropping), the market seems intent on keeping rates a little higher than where they have been.

Thomson Reuters Eikon and Tradeweb noted that “flows on Monday were the typical below normal (roughly ¾ of the daily average) and supply was not much better at $2 billion.” There was no economic news, and by the time the dust settled agency MBS prices were worse between .125-.250. Here this morning, in the very early going, the 10-yr is unchanged from Monday’s close (at 1.96%) as are agency MBS prices.

The industry’s thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and survivors of the monstrous tornado that roared through suburbs of Oklahoma City, flattening entire neighborhoods and destroying a primary school. For me the events are especially poignant, having just been in Oklahoma last month and today traveling from Texas to Kansas, but my feelings are nowhere near what the families of those directly impacted by the storm must be feeling.

Article source: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/channels/pipelinepress/05212013-reg-e-cfpb-fines-compliance.aspx

We just had a fairly quick flush of of Treasury prices on an isolated spike in volume. Looks like several big trades in cash Treasuries with some response in futures just after 10am. This took yields into the 1.99s. The volume spike hasn’t quite died down and MBS haven’t quite decided on the extent to which they’ll follow, but so far, we’ve been holding right around an eighth of a point weaker from the first rate sheets of the day, and look to be bouncing back now.

This is a similar to start to yesterday morning, but with earlier selling this time. The move in Treasuries may have been met with buying support before getting a chance to hit 2.0%. This gives it a bit of a different tone than yesterday (yesterday, 10yr yields just went dead flat after their first rise, and then broke higher), and one that is more hopeful as far as finding a supportive ceiling is concerned.

More important than “hope” for a ceiling is ‘respect’ for 2.0%. It isn’t only significant because it’s a ‘nice round number.’ It’s now also the scene of a big volume move and bounce. If 10′s head back there and break, it would likely be bad for MBS. For now, with 10′s back to 1.979 already, MBS are off their lows and we’re likely avoiding reprice risk for now.

Article source: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/mortgage_rates/blog/309549.aspx

Recognizing that real estate investors have
played a key role in the state’s housing market recovery, the California
Association of Realtors® (C.A.R.) recently surveyed its members about their
interactions with investor customers and have developed a profile of investors
and their behavior.

Two-third of investors are following a
long term strategy in investing, buying and holding property although three-quarters
of intend to hold the property for less than six years.   About one-quarter
(26 percent) of inventors buy property in order to flip it. 

Most
investors, about 75 percent, are what C.A.R. termed small mom-and-pop type,
owning between one and ten investment properties.  Fifteen percent own one property, 46 percent
own two to five, and 14 percent own six to 10. 
Owners manage more than two-thirds of the
properties rather than hire a professional manager.   

Single-family homes represent 78
percent of the investor purchases, 14 percent were multi-family properties and
7 percent were other investor types.  Bulk-sold
properties made up only 1 percent of sales. 

Investors spent a median of $272,000
on their properties and 67 percent of transactions were all cash.  Eight out of ten buyers made repairs to the
property at a median cost of $10,000 or 4 percent of the median sales
price.  The more expensive the property
the less the investor spent on repairs with an average of 4.2 percent of the
median price spent on properties priced below $250,000 compared to 3.4 percent
where the properties cost more than $500,000.

Among the reasons investors cited
for buying or selling include profit potential (cited by 34 percent), good
price (26 percent), low interest rates (10 percent), personal (6 percent), and
location (4 percent).  The median rate of return on investment was 14
percent.

Fifty-nine percent of investors
found their property on a multiple listing service and 27 percent were foreign
investors.  China, India, and Mexico were
the most common countries of origin for foreign investors.

Article source: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/05212013_california_real_estate.asp

Mortgage rates finally caught a break, moving just slightly lower for only the second time this month.  For some, the drop in rates may be too little too late as it still doesn’t put much of a dent in the losses suffered in May.  Best-execution for Conventional, 30yr Fixed Loans is still between 3.625% and 3.75%, and we noted a few lenders who were priced significantly worse than yesterday despite the majority being moderately improved.

The leading candidate for the root cause of all the recent volatility is the general disposition of the Fed  toward QE3, the “quantitative easing” programs responsible for the Fed’s large-scale asset purchases.  To a large, but unknown extent, QE3 is one factor keeping mortgage rates low because it makes for massive, guaranteed buying demand for mortgage-backed-securities.  Extra demand raises prices, and higher prices in MBS allow for lower mortgage rates.  Analysts have estimated the effects of QE3 to be anywhere from .5 to 1.0% for mortgage rates.

While it’s impossible to know for sure, it’s certain that rates would be higher without QE3.  The “general disposition” mentioned above, refers to whether or not the Fed will soon begin curtailing the dollar amount of QE3 purchases.  There’s also uncertainty as to whether or not that would begin in MBS or Treasuries, but decreasing purchases in either would still have a negative effect on mortgage rates.  That said, some level of decrease or “tapering” as it’s most frequently referred to has probably been “priced in” to rate levels over the past few weeks. 

Markets are waiting to see if Bernanke (who speaks in front of the Joint Economic Committee in the morning) or the Minutes from the last FOMC Meeting (released at 2pm in the afternoon) will offer any additional insights as to when and how such tapering might take shape.  In general, the greater the shorter the time horizon and the bigger the decrease, the worse it would be for rates.  We probably haven’t seen rates go quite as high as the worst case scenario would warrant, but there’s also plenty of room for rates to bounce back if there’s less serious talk of tapering in tomorrow’s events.  Just like the last instance of a positive day for rates, we can’t draw any conclusions about a “bounce,” but it’s definitely on the table as an equal possibility in the short term depending on how tomorrow goes.

 

Loan Originator Perspectives

“Finally caught an up day in MBS markets today as Fed speak stoked investor hopes for continued Fed easing. As pronounced and decisive as today’s move (+12/32 as of press time) is, it’s important to note we have just recaptured yesterday’s opening levels. At least the down trend is off the table for now; borrowers and loan officers can breath a short sigh of relief. Still prefer to lock early in the loan process, don’t want to gamble much in this market.” -Ted Rood, Senior Originator, Wintrust Mortgage

“Would be great if this was a turning point and we were heading lower in rates, but based on the recent moves I have a hard time believing this is nothing more than a headfake. Though FED members have been helping the last couple days with their chatter so maybe they have a feed to MBSLive. Still favor locking until we see 2 positive days in a row and even then floating is for the brave.” -Mike Owens, Partner, Horizon Financial Inc.

“The day-to-day volatility continues this week. The two day MBS chart for this week looks like a Six Flags roller coaster, and rates are racing up and down accordingly. This is likely to continue through tomorrow when the FOMC minutes from May 1 are released. The best approach in this kind of volatility for rate shoppers is to set a realistic rate target with your lender, and lock when your target is available.” -Julian Hebron, Branch Manager, RPM Mortgage

 

Today’s Best-Execution Rates

• 30YR FIXED – 3.625%, (3.75% not far from sharing the best-execution space)
• FHA/VA – 3.25% (varies more between lenders than conventional 30yr Fixed)
• 15 YEAR FIXED –  2.75-2.875%
• 5 YEAR ARMS -  2.625-3.25% depending on the lender

Ongoing Lock/Float Considerations

• After rising consistently from all-time lows in September and October 2012, rates challenged the long term trend higher, but failed to sustain a breakout
• EU and domestic economic data remain relevant to mortgage rates, but uncertainty over the Fed’s bond-buying plans through the rest of the year is causing volatility 
• The further we’ve progressed into 2013, the faster the swings have become
• (As always, please keep in mind that our talk of Best-Execution always pertains to a completely ideal scenario.  There can be all sorts of reasons that your quoted rate would not be the same as our average rates, and in those cases, assuming you’re following along on a day to day basis, simply use the Best-Ex levels we quote as a baseline to track potential movement in your quoted rate).

Article source: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/consumer_rates/309616.aspx

(a rare positive “alert”):
Fannie 3.0s are now up 7 ticks on the day to 102-17 after hanging on to the bounce that was potentially developing during the last update at 10:15am. After the Fed’s daily Treasury buying operation (aka: POMO for “permanent open market operation), yields only rose a bit more as remaining inventory was sold. Volume went dead after that and big buying came in at 11:24am in Treasuries.

That’s been good for just over a bp of improvement in 10′s and MBS have followed it up with several ticks more. Keep in mind that, as 10′s approach 2%, Fannie 3.0s have a tendency to get especially queasy. When 10′s show resilience in moving lower in this high 1.9′s territory, MBS perk up noticeably. We’re seeing that now, and may see reprices from some ‘early crowd” lenders.

Treasuries DID, however, pause to digest Bullard’s comments at 11:30, which were surprisingly dovish. Bullard said that QE is the best way to way to go when a central bank has ‘near zero’ rates, but this was more advice for Europe than it was a statement about current policy. It’s almost as if markets were double checking to make sure there wasn’t any hidden, bearish clue in Bullard’s speech. 10′s held at 1.96, and not even 1 minute ago, broke lower. Things are looking up for MBS for now. 1.96 is now a pivot point that we’ll hope proves supportive if yields head higher.

Article source: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/mortgage_rates/blog/309613.aspx

Ryan Eddy, Christine Deschaine, and Fred Cordova (pictured, right) have joined the brokerage team at the Beverly Hills headquarters of Kennedy-Wilson Properties, Ltd. Since the first quarter 2013, the firm has hired seven veteran brokers.

Cordova and Eddy both came from Colliers International and Deschaine came from Lee Associates.

Cordova served as executive vice president at Colliers and national executive director and chairman of its national steering committee. He has more than 30 years of experience in the industry and transactional volume topping $6 billion. He graduated from Harvard University Business School in 2008.

Deschaine joins the firm as a retail expert with more than 20 years of experience, and her career has seen more than 269,000 square feet of transactions valued at $40 million. She is a graduate of the University of Nevada.

Eddy has 10 years of acquisitions and institutional ownership experience with a focus on investment sales, and previously worked at the RIO Company with $160 million in multifamily acquisitions. He is a graduate of UC Davis

“Since our acquisition of Sachse Real Estate in 2010, the addition of Fred, Christine Ryan reaffirms our commitment to building an “All-Star” brokerage team at Kennedy Wilson,” says Jim Rosten, president of KW Properties Group.

Article source: http://www.costar.com/News/Article/Kennedy-Wilson-Properties-Hires-Three-Industry-Veterans/148571?ref=/News/Article/Kennedy-Wilson-Properties-Hires-Three-Industry-Veterans/148571&src=rss