1. Analysts say the sub-prime mortgage markets look especially strong at the moment because real estate prices are rising. 2. ARMs represent a small but growing share of the overall mortgage market. 3. Backing from the secondary mortgage market encourages participating lenders to make loan commitments to buyers from nonprofit developers. 4. Barbara Kenworthy, portfolio manager at Prudential Mutual Funds, said that turmoil in the mortgage securities market might also be affecting the Treasury market. 5. Before the Internet, the mortgage market consisted of whatever the local lender or broker had to offer. 6. A change in the mortgage market ignites fears that inflation rates are creeping, said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH Associates, a New Jersey financial publisher. 7. A combined Halifax and Bank of Scotland would control roughly a fifth of the British mortgage market, and a third of Scottish banking, analysts said. 8. Brokers say that insurance companies like Principal Financial Group in Des Moines, and Northwest Mutual Life in Milwaukee also are plumbing the New York commercial mortgage market. 9. But playing the mortgage market can be tricky, and even risky, for the unwary. 10. David Hocheiser, a loan officer at Bank of America Mortgage in Fairfield, N.J., is struck by how much the mortgage market has changed in recent months. |