Fannie Mae Chief Economist David Berson released his weekly commentary today. His key concern? The state of the Jumbo Mortgage market. In Hawaii, that means mortgages in excess of $625,000.

Amid these disruptions in the mortgage and housing market, lenders reported a lack of investor demand for high credit quality jumbo mortgages and other mortgages not eligible for agency purchase…This spread has moderated somewhat over the past couple of weeks, however, and fell below 80 basis points in late September, suggesting some modest improvement in the market conditions for prime loans with balances above the conforming loan limit.  Even so, the spread remains historically wide — suggesting that the prime jumbo market remains in distress.