On an unadjusted basis, the index rose 10.4 percent, but was down 52.3 percent compared with the same week a year ago.

Much of the decline compared to the previous year pertained to refinances. The unadjusted purchases index increased 9.8 percent compared to the previous week and was down 19.1 percent from a year ago.

Interest rates decreased last week:

* 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.00 percent from 5.13 percent.
* 15-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 4.33 percent from 4.45 percent.
* 1-year ARMs decreased to 6.72 percent from 6.83 percent.

adopt from [Realtor]

“Aperio Lending comes at exactly the right time for financial institutions concerned about consistency, process and control in lending,” said Nick Wilde, managing director, Asia-Pacific, Bank Solutions, Fiserv. “Aperio Lending simplifies and streamlines any complex loan origination process and provides integration with the front office, back office and external service providers. With a single, real-time view of the customer, Fiserv clients using Aperio Lending can improve their decisioning, enter the market faster with new products and deliver a more responsive service to their customers. In addition, the solution?s best-in-class business process, automated workflow and exception management provide better risk management and mitigation capabilities.”

Aperio Lending will appeal to banks and consumer finance organisations that want a modern, easily maintainable solution for originating new loans. With consistent, rules-based business processes, banks can manage toward a higher quality of lending and gain greater efficiency through automation. Its ease of use benefits bank customers as well, and enables origination across multiple channels, including contact centre, branch, web and mobile. The solution provides the ability to originate various types of personal loan products, set roles and limits for agents and supervisors, efficiently handle exceptions according to bank policy and provide a consolidated view of the applicant’s credit worthiness and ability to service the loan.

To further facilitate efficient and seamless process execution, Aperio Lending is designed for integration with external parties such as valuers and credit bureaus. A checklist for document verification is standard, enabling the bank to certify customer application audit satisfaction prior to funding, regardless of whether the application originates in the bank or externally. The solution is available neutral of core provider, but is pre-integrated with the Signature Bank Platform from Fiserv, as well as with Aperio CRM and business process management.

for more information visit www.fiserv.com.

Is it harder to get a mortgage these days?
The short answer is yes! If your credit is beat up, you’re buying a beat up house, you’ve got too much debt, no down payment, or you can’t prove your income it’s tough to get a mortgage. Otherwise, it’s easy!

The nature of the current mortgage market is that credit is more difficult to come by for lenders – therefore, they’re stingier than they have been in the recent past because they can’t afford to take any more risk. The good news is that, for 80% of people out there, they’ll still qualify easily for a mortgage. There is always demand for qualified applicants and good homes. That is simply being accentuated because of the current economic environment. Don’t forget, lenders make money by lending money…so they want to lend it to you. You just have to be able to pay it back.

I heard that rates have shot up! Is this true?
Actually, not really. Without getting technical, rates have both decreased AND increased – at the same time. From a technical standpoint, rates have decreased…however, borrowing has gotten much more expensive, so the spreads between the true cost of borrowing and what lenders are paying have increased. The net result is a slight increase in some rates – but nothing serious. In fact, interest rates are still very low on a historic basis and we’re likely to continue to see rates that are affordable for Canadians who have good jobs and are not carrying too much debt.

Read More at [Edmonton Blog]