Freddie Mac

New assistance for renters may help but past efforts, while necessary, failed to get relief to renters in an expedient way, said David Brickman, who is now the head of a new agency lending platform backed by Barings and Meridian Capital.

The company is still searching for someone to fill the roll on a full-time basis, but the $600,000 annual salary cap may limit the candidate pool.

Some applaud the agency's recent delay of the mandatory compliance date for a new Qualified Mortgage standard. Others say it leads to more uncertainty for lenders, opens the door to additional changes and enables some companies to loosen their underwriting.

With the latest growth, interest rates spiked 37 basis points since the calendar flipped to 2021 alongside rising Treasury bond yields.

The agency issued a proposal moving the compliance date for the Qualified Mortgage rule revamp to October 2022.

After several weeks of resistance, mortgage rates are now moving in lockstep with the recent increases in the 10-year Treasury yield.

The $16.9 billion in issuance marked the biggest annual number seen since the government-sponsored enterprise reconstituted its risk sharing program in 2013.

With the most recent stimulus aiding economic recovery, mortgage lending’s feeding frenzy could be coming to an end.

The company purchased $1.1 trillion of single-family mortgages and $83 billion of multifamily loans during 2020.

The cost associated with borrowing money to finance homes now appears more likely to remain stable rather than continuing to decline, which should eventually slow refinance activity.