Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in the spotlight again over the role some housing-industry experts say they could play in reducing mortgage rates if they resumed a more active investor role in the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) market. That’s a role those government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) have not played since prior to entering into conservatorship in the wake of […]
Big Four title firm First American Financial believes the cybersecurity incident it incurred on Dec. 20, 2023, will have material impact on its fourth quarter 2023 financial results, according to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last Friday. In the filing, First American informed the public that it believes it has contained […]
Mortgage rates at their lowest level in three weeks led to an increase in borrowers’ demand for home loans last week, spreading some optimism in the industry in the first few weeks of 2024. To prove it, analysts are already discussing a potential refi recovery. Overall, mortgage applications rose by 10.4% in the week ending Jan. […]
New home construction exploded early in the pandemic as soaring home demand squeezed existing inventory nationwide, giving homebuilders a much bigger share of a shrinking pie. However, as mortgage rates hit multi-decade highs, cooling demand and shrinking the pool of qualified buyers for new homes, homebuilders slowed their pace of construction, which settled at a […]
For the second consecutive month, homebuilders have become more optimistic. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) report rose seven points month-over-month to a reading of 44 in January. The report attributes this sharp increase in builder confidence to mortgage rates remaining under 7% for the past month. “Lower interest rates improved housing affordability […]
A Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) analysis has shown racial disparities in appraisers’ use of time adjustments, potentially harming borrowers of minority groups. The FHFA based its analysis on single-family housing data from the Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD), collected by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. A 5% sample of the UAD data was used, including the period between the third […]
Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Marcia Fudge suggested to a congressional committee that the department could consider eliminating life-of-loan premium requirements for mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), but did not offer any indication about the issue’s priority level at HUD. Sitting for a HUD oversight hearing […]
The latest copycat commission lawsuit alleges that real estate industry players in Nevada have colluded to artificially inflate real estate agent commissions. The suit was filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas by Nathaniel Whaley, who sold a home in Las Vegas in April 2022 and paid a buyer broker commission. The […]
The services of Finnish digital floor plan firm CubiCasa are now available subscribers of yet another multiple listing services. Realcomp MLS announced last Wednesday that its users now had free access to CubiCasa through an alliance with the proptech company. Agents and brokers who subscribe to the Michigan-based MLS will receive free customizable floor plans […]
Empty-nester baby boomers own roughly twice as many of the nation’s three-bedroom-plus homes as millennials with children, according to a report from Redfin published on Tuesday. The report is based on a Redfin analysis of U.S. Census data from 2022, that breaks down the share of three-bedroom-plus homes owned and occupied by each generation, by […]
Ginnie Mae intends to develop a new reverse mortgage-backed security product enabling the acquisition of loans from an HMBS pool above the existing 98% maximum claim amount (MCA) requirement, according to a new announcement. Released on Tuesday morning, the move is a further attempt to address the well-documented liquidity challenges that have been plaguing the […]
After a multi-year decline in agent movement between brokerages, Relitix’s Agent Movement Index shows a clear bottoming out in early fall of 2023 and increased real estate agent mobility as we move into 2024. “We can definitely call a bottom to the decline in agent movement,” said Rob Keefe, Relitix founder and president. “Agents will […]
