Federal regulators who oversee the financial health of government-sponsored mortgage repurchasers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say they must follow new guidelines for nontraditional loans.

The guidelines, published in September, direct federally chartered banks to use stricter underwriting standards and fully disclose to borrowers the risks such loans carry.

James Lockhart, director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, said Fannie and Freddie have until Feb. 28 to report back to OFHEO on their progress in developing policies, consumer credit quality standards and capital provisions in line with the guidelines.

2006 was the year that some real estate forecasters had been predicting for several years. It was the end of the boom that was characterized by historically low interest rates, frenzied sales, large-scale new construction and rapid price appreciation. But it was not a bust, as many real estate markets in the country still experienced above-average sales.

“All of the sudden this seller’s market had morphed into a buyer’s market,” said Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The signs began to appear toward the end of 2005, he said, that the market was in transition. “It seemed sudden at the time though all the signs were there before.”

The Canadian Real Estate Association reported today that a seasonally adjusted 27,630 homes were sold via the Multiple Listing Service in the nation’s major markets in November 2006, down 5.6 percent compared to November 2005 and up 1.5 percent since October 2006.

For the first 11 months of the year, unit sales via the MLS in Canada’s major markets dropped 0.2 percent compared to the same period last year, while the average price of homes for the first 11 months of this year rose 10.7 percent compared to the same period last year.

Mortgage rates edged up this week on news of healthy job gains and higher retail sales, Freddie Mac and Bankrate.com reported today in their weekly surveys.

In Freddie Mac’s survey, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage inched up this week to an average 6.12 percent from 6.11 percent a week ago, while the 15-year fixed gained from 5.84 percent to 5.86 percent during the period.

Points, which are fees charged by lenders for loan processing expressed as a percent of the loan, averaged 0.4 on the 30-year and 0.5 on the 15-year loans.

About 7,204 new and resale homes and condos sold in the San Francisco Bay Area in November, down 25.9 percent from November 2005 and down 9.7 percent compared to October, real estate research company DataQuick Information Systems reported today.

It was the lowest sales count for the month of November since 2001, when 6,644 homes sold, DataQuick reported. Since 1988, the average monthly sales total for November is 7,725 — with a low of 5,579 in November 1997 and a high of 10,897 in November 2004.