Jim Dobbs

Borrowers expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates next year to contain soaring prices and are locking in favorable terms now, bankers say.

With its agreement to buy KS StateBank’s residential mortgage operation, Kansas-based Armed Forces is going all in on home lending.

The San Francisco bank reported a 26% increase in its third-quarter earnings, thanks to robust single-family, multifamily and commercial real estate loan activity in New York, Boston and its home city.

Consumers are booking rooms at levels not seen since early 2020 and loan delinquencies have fallen sharply as a result. Still, business travel remains sluggish and new COVID variants are spreading, threatening the hotel industry’s recovery.

Even as lockdowns ease, the trend toward remote work poses challenges for building owners and the banks that lend to them.

Kerry Killinger, former CEO of Washington Mutual, says the asset bubbles and increased consumer debt that contributed to his company's failure are reappearing.

At first the deal seemed an unlikely marriage of two mortgage-heavy companies. But acquiring the Michigan company would help New York Community accomplish its two chief goals — reducing deposit costs and its concentration of multifamily loans — while giving it the scale to pursue more deals.

The Michigan company recently paid $70 million to close the books on a matter dating to the last financial crisis.

Deferrals may be hiding credit issues, leading lenders to track deposit flows, property maintenance and other factors to gauge the true health of their portfolios.

Low rates and intense competition might lead some banks to ease underwriting standards in 2021, when the economy may not yet have recovered.