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Bond traders are girding for the risk that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is ready, willing and able to plunge the U.S. into recession to get the inflation bogey under control.

The Fed chair said actively selling securities will become necessary as it looks to reduce its balance sheet, but not anytime soon.

The only way to address inflation is for Congress to fix issues around home supply and demand, the National Housing Coalition said in reaction to the Federal Reserve's move Wednesday.

And the rate of distress in second-lien home loans ticked up from the previous month, according to Standard & Poor's Dow Jones and Experian.

On the other hand, the economists from the UCLA Anderson Forecast claim the U.S. is not currently in a recession and that the chance of a recession in the next 12 months is less than 50%.

The average purchase loan amount rose as a brief increase in demand for government-sponsored loan programs cooled.

The former head of the agency said a decision last year to suspend caps on investor loans has further induced demand in an already hot market. Other experts say a supply-demand imbalance is the true driving force.

Sales of previously owned U.S. homes fell for the seventh straight month in August as rising mortgage rates continued to erode affordability and deal a considerable blow to the housing market. 

Some stakeholders in the mortgage industry are concerned about the late 2023 deadline, but the government bond insurer said most are already prepared, and it'll work with those who aren't.

However, a lower share of applications were rejected for Blacks, Hispanics and Asians, while whites had the smallest percentage change, a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report said.