Origination

Changed borrower psychology and the severe housing inventory shortage dropped lending activity across the board, according to Black Knight.

There’s now a unique, additional source of demand that’s opening up in an already fiercely-competitive housing market that VA lenders have to solve for.

Fears of widespread credit losses have largely subsided, but demand for new commercial real estate loans remains lackluster because many companies are sitting on so much cash they don’t need to borrow. Meanwhile, competition from private equity groups and other nonbank lenders is escalating.

Also: Residential delinquencies reach a pandemic low, groups seek to keep mortgage origination and securitization rules aligned

Tighter mortgage rules could also be weighing on second-home buyers given that loans for such purchases, along with those for investment properties, can only make up 7% of a lender’s total pipeline

Meanwhile, National MI has been increasing its new insurance written by slightly widening its credit standards.

With residential supply severely lagging behind demand, redeveloping unused office space into multifamily properties seems like a perfect solution, but it’ll take governmental collaboration and tax breaks to make such projects financially compelling, developers say.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development reinstituted the “affirmatively furthering fair housing" measure, which the Trump administration had argued was overly prescriptive, and promised a later rulemaking to bolster the policy.

Recent reports show inflation rising, but employment underperforming, while interest rates dropped across the board.

The continued home price spike also drove the negative equity share to an all-time low, according to CoreLogic.