New Policies Make Home Buying More Accessible for Some, Raises Fees for Others

Newsletter - May 2023 Back in May of 2022, President Biden announced a series of initiatives to ease the burden of housing costs for Americans both renting and buying. One aspect of the Housing Supply Action Plan was to "deploy new financing mechanisms to build and preserve more housing where…

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What Recent Bank Failures Mean for Fluctuating Mortgage Rates

Newsletter - April 2023 Predictions for this year's mortgage rates and real estate trends shifted this week after the second-largest and third-largest bank failures in history occurred. Investors quickly withdrew their funds from banks across the country causing changes in the Fed's plans to reduce inflation. The Federal Reserve had…

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Rising Household Debt Leads Homeowners to Tap into Home Equity

Newsletter - March 2023 As inflation continues to affect the country, many Americans are turning to credit cards and home equity lines of credit (HELOC) in order to find relief from the rising costs of basic needs, like groceries and gas. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,…

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Millennials priced out of housing market (or maxing their budgets)

Newsletter - February 2023 Millennials and other first-time home buyers have been hit particularly hard by one of the most expensive housing markets in U.S. history. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, high demand driven by low inventory and even lower interest rates sent home prices skyrocketing. Many millennials lost bidding…

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Upside-down mortgages on the rise as market corrects

Newsletter - January 2023 U.S. home prices increased by 10.1% annually in October compared to 11.4% in September. That's the lowest year-over-year increase since early 2021, and the trend is expected to continue. One in 12 U.S. homes purchased in 2022 now have upside-down mortgages, according to Black Knight's October…

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Refinance activity ends year on a low note

Newsletter - December 2022 There were no surprises when real estate data agency ATTOM released its Q3 Residential Property Mortgage Origination Report last month. Mortgage originations were down 47% from Q3 of last year-the sixth quarterly decrease in a row and the steepest annual drop since 2001. Mortgage rates that…

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Housing market cooling, Realtors feeling the heat

Newsletter - November 2022 There's a chill in the air, and not because it's autumn. The housing market is cooling off fast, and some experts say winter is coming. Mortgage rates topped 7% last month while originations plummeted, and things aren't expected to turn around this year-or next. The Mortgage…

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Are a Housing Crash and Recession Imminent?

Newsletter - July 2022 After two years of a red-hot housing market fueled by low inventory and even lower interest rates, things seem to finally be cooling down. As the 30-year fixed rate hovers near 6%, "fewer people are getting mortgages, homes are sitting on the market for longer, and…

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Are Increasing Adjustable-Rate Mortgages a Red Flag for Today’s Housing Market?

Newsletter - June 2022 With interest rates climbing and home prices still sky high, adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) are on the rise. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit 5.30% last month - compared to 3% a year ago - significantly increasing the cost of financing a home. In May 2021, the…

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FHA Adds 40-year Loan Modification to COVID-19 Recovery Options

Newsletter - May 2022 Mortgage servicers can now offer a 40-year loan modification as part of the COVID-19 Recovery waterfall. For now, only borrowers with FHA Title II forward mortgages who were financially affected by the pandemic are eligible, and the option must be used in conjunction with a partial…

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Housing Market 2022: No Relief in Sight for Buyers

Newsletter - April 2022 Virtually every real estate firm predicted that home price growth would slow down this year, but just a few months in, that consensus has fallen apart. Home prices surged an unsustainable 18.8% last year, fueled by a depleted inventory and record-low mortgage rates. But with interest…

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2022 Forecast: Rising Mortgage Rates Ahead

Newsletter - March 2022 The 30-year mortgage rate topped 4% last month for the first time since 2019, and is expected to go higher before the year's over. Experts point to three factors behind rising mortgage rates: a recovering economy, the Fed winding down the buying of mortgage-backed securities, and…

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Investment in Mortgage Tech Critical for 2022 and Beyond

Newsletter - February 2022 By now, most lenders have adopted mortgage tech that enables homebuyers to apply for loans online, but a shifting market demands even more investment in automation. The Mortgage Bankers Association predicts the 30-year fixed-rate could reach 4% before this year is over, which will reduce the…

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Home Prices in 2022: Going Up, Says Zillow

Newsletter - January 2022 The hot housing market we saw in 2021 doesn't appear to be cooling off anytime soon. According to the Zillow Economic Research team, home prices in 2022 will continue to rise, keeping homeownership out of reach for some would-be homebuyers. Zillow predicts the price of homes…

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Still No Spike in Foreclosure Rates as 2021 Winds Down

Newsletter - December 2021 Despite the federal moratorium ending months ago, foreclosure rates increased by just 2.6% in October, according to Black Knight's First Look report. Meanwhile, fewer homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments, with around 2 million loans at least 30 days past due in October - 1.45…

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Will the New CFPB Director Bring Back the Bad Old Days?

Newsletter - November 2021 That sound you heard on Sept. 30 was the collective groan of the mortgage industry upon learning the Senate confirmed Rohit Chopra as CFPB director for the next five years. Experts in consumer finance expect Chopra to step up the agency's enforcement activities after Kathy Kraninger's…

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Want to Pay Your Mortgage in Bitcoin? You Could Soon

Newsletter - October 2021 If you're one of the 13% of Americans who invests in cryptocurrency and you'd like to use it to make your mortgage payments, you're in luck. United Wholesale Mortgage, the second-largest mortgage lender in the country behind Rocket Mortgage, are aiming to let borrowers pay their…

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Supreme Court Ends Federal Eviction Moratorium

Newsletter - September 2021 It's finally over. The federal eviction moratorium - initially set to expire more than a year ago - was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court last month after a challenge from a coalition of landlords and real estate groups. The ban, which was passed as…

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Foreclosure Ban Ends With Millions Still Behind on Mortgage Payments

Newsletter - August 2021 The federal eviction and foreclosure bans officially expired July 31, but protections are still in place to prevent people from losing their homes - or at least delay it for a bit longer. At the end of July, the Biden administration announced new loan modification and…

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CFPB’s New Foreclosure Rule a “Bridge” for Borrowers

Newsletter - July 2021 The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced a new foreclosure rule last month that throws delinquent borrowers with federally backed loans a lifeline when federal forbearance programs end July 31. Effective Aug. 31 through Dec. 31, 2021, the new rule will give the 2 million homeowners who are…

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Federal Forbearance Period Ending Will Test Mortgage Companies

Newsletter - June 2021 When June comes to an end, so will the federal foreclosure ban - and soon after, the forbearance programs set in place last year by the CARES Act. More than 2 million homeowners are still in those forbearance plans, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, while another 1.8…

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Here Comes the CFPB (Again)

Newsletter - May 2021 The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued policy guidance and proposed new rules in April, signaling that it plans to prioritize mortgage-servicing oversight in the coming year. According to Reuters, the CFPB has been requesting data from servicers as to how they are handling forbearance programs…

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What Will Happen to Mortgage Rates in 2021? Experts Weigh In

Newsletter - April 2021 On the heels of the best year in history for the mortgage industry, mortgage rates inched up by about 50 basis points in the first quarter of this year. The rise has prompted industry professionals, homeowners, and aspiring homeowners alike to wonder: What will happen to…

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Mortgage Delinquency Rate Dips, But Record Highs Persist

Newsletter - March 2021 The mortgage delinquency rate dropped to 5.9% in January, dipping below 6% for the first time since March 2020, a -3.82% change month-over-month. An improvement, to be sure - but the bigger picture is more complicated. According to Black Knight's First Look at January 2021 Mortgage Data,…

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What Can We Expect from Biden’s New CFPB Director?

Newsletter - February 2021 The day before his inauguration, President Joe Biden nominated veteran financial regulator Rohit Chopra to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. An ally of Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Chopra served as assistant director at the agency, where he was a fierce critic of how student-loan servicers handled struggling borrowers.…

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