If the country’s terrorism insurance program were allowed to expire, coverage would become largely unavailable and the gears of commercial real estate would grind to a halt, warns the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® and the Coalition to Insure Against Terrorism.

“The potential unavailability of terrorism risk insurance at the end of this year impacts our financing agreements and potentially hurts the commercial real estate market,” said Joseph Ditchman, former president of the Ohio Association of REALTORS® and a partner at Colliers Ostendorf-Morris, one of Cleveland’s largest commercial real estate firms.

Ditchman testified at a U.S. House Subcommittee hearing on behalf of NAR and the Coalition to Insure Against Terrorism, which represents a wide range of businesses and organizations in the transportation, real estate, manufacturing, construction, entertainment and retail sectors. Read more

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TALLAHASSEE — After hearing from Florida homeowners furious over taxes, Gov. Charlie Crist on Wednesday unveiled his own property tax-cut plan that aides said would lop 12 percent off average homeowners’ bills in its first year and reduce their taxes by a total of more than $2,900 within five years.

With House-Senate negotiations apparently going nowhere, Crist jumped in to try to break the deadlock. On Tuesday, hundreds of South Florida residents had told the governor at a town hall meeting that they needed tax relief right away.

“It’s important that we continue to let the Legislature do its job,” Crist said Wednesday. But he said legislators, who have been unable to agree over the past eight weeks, had come to him privately to say, “We think you can help us along a little bit.”

The plan presented by Crist to House and Senate conferees did not include the crux of the plan pushed by his fellow Republicans in the House: the abolition of property taxes on Floridians’ year-round residences and an increase in the state sales tax. Read more

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The number of mortgage borrowers with down payments of less than the standard 20 percent who opted for private mortgage insurance rose to 118,214 in February, up from 108,980 in January and 104,146 year over year.

During the housing boom, many borrowers sidestepped mortgage insurance by combining a first loan with a “piggyback” home-equity loan or line of credit that served as the down payment. But rising interest rates have made these variable-rate second mortgages less attractive to borrowers, and some are choosing to pay mortgage insurance simply to avoid having to sign two sets of loan documents. Read more

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The chief executives of both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as well as the Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Housing Commissioner and Assistant Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development testified last week in a hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services about solutions to the current subprime mortgage turmoil.

Each of the four had some interesting things to say about what their organizations/agencies are doing or could be doing to resolve the situation and we will, in a couple of installments, cover them all.

Fannie Mae’s Daniel H. Mudd, in a statement prepared for delivery said that his corporation sounded the alarm about the impending subprime crisis in early 2005 as they recognized the dangers of “layered-risk” lending and decided that the products that offered borrowers a mix of teaser rates, interest-only, negative amortization, and payment option and low-doc requirements coupled with adjustable rate loans were for more sophisticated buyers. The corporation decided then that it made no sense for borrowers to take on risks that they might not be aware of; to set them up for failure. Read more

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Mortgage insurers are having a great year, thanks to borrowers who want to avoid piggyback mortgages with a variable rate, according to David H. Katkov, president and chief operating officer of PMI Mortgage Insurance Co.
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