Part of an LA Times article today about the latest interest rate cut:
What's more, $25 billion to $30 billion in adjustable-rate mortgages are "repricing" each month throughout 2008, said Greg McBride, financial analyst with BankRate.com. Because these loans typically adjust once or twice a year, Tuesday's rate cut combines with other recent Fed cuts to provide many of the borrowers with a huge break.
"This is going to save a lot of people from completely unmanageable payment increases," McBride said. Someone with a $200,000 ARM would have been hit with a $370-a-month payment increase had the Fed not acted in recent months to cut short-term rates a total of 1 3/4 percentage points, he said. Now the hike will probably be in the range of $100 a month.
"For many homeowners, those manageable rate resets will be the difference between keeping a home or losing it," he said.
McBride said the rate cut could prove far more significant than the lending industry's pledge to help certain sub-prime borrowers.
The link is here
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...lines-business
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Regarding the new stimulus package, here's what an AP story wrote today:
To address the mortgage crisis, the package also allows Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — government-sponsored companies that are the two biggest U.S. financers and guarantors of home loans — to buy home mortgages much larger than the current $417,000 limit. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said that lending cap might reach as high as $700,000 in areas with the highest home prices.
Link is here
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080124/...onomy_stimulus 
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