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The 30-year average passed the 4.5% mark for the first time since January 2019 as the labor market tightened and prices rose.

But the sluggish pace of refinances brought down overall application numbers last week.

Wells Fargo won an early round in a lawsuit accusing the bank of running a predatory mortgage lending scheme in the Atlanta area before the 2008 financial crisis and continuing to discriminate against minorities for more than a decade afterward.

A majority of housing experts also believe first-time homeownership should hit 2019 levels again within four years; however, a substantial number don’t expect it this decade.

More properties on the market are also selling quicker, with almost 60% now receiving accepted offers within two weeks.

Home prices have increased at their fastest rate since the mid-2000s housing boom and driven skyrocketing inflation. Fed Gov. Christopher Waller says lenders are better prepared for a shock than in 2007 but still need to be monitored — especially nonbank lenders.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said longer-run structural issues will continue to put upward pressure on home prices and rents even as the central bank begins a campaign to raise borrowing costs.

A fresh wave of volatility threatens the battered U.S. Treasury market — and this time it’s all thanks to the Federal Reserve’s ambitious bid to shrink its $9 trillion balance sheet just as it raises interest rates.

Refinance applications came in 54% lower than a year ago, but average loan sizes accelerated, with the purchase amount setting another record.

Scott Colbert, executive vice president and chief economist at Commerce Trust Co., will discuss the Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision and where they go from here.

Current deputy general counsel Wendell Chambliss steps up to the newly created officer position, with the appointment coming after a similar recent hire by Fannie Mae.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank will take the “necessary steps” to get inflation down even if that means increasing interest rates more rapidly than currently anticipated and eventually to levels that slow the broader economy.

This follows the publication last week of an investigation that found that the bank had in 2020 approved only 47% of applications to refinance mortgages completed by Black homeowners compared with 72% of those from White applicants.

It was the highest percentage reached in almost three years.

All five of the Biden administration's nominees received enough votes to secure passage to the Senate floor. Chair Sherrod Brown of Ohio called the moment "historic."

The increase is the first since 2018 and, combined with reductions in the mortgage and Treasury bond portfolio, it could drive 30-year home loan rates to 4.5% by year-end.

Purchases increased, but refinance activity cooled again due to rising rates.

The Federal Open Market Committee is all but certain to raise rates by a quarter percentage point at the conclusion of its two-day policy meeting.

If lenders get to choose the credit-scoring model, the Big Three credit bureaus will likely set a price for VantageScore that is super low, so low that FICO cannot compete, just as Uber decimated the taxicab industry by setting prices artificially low until the taxicabs were gone, writes an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.

The West Virginia Democrat released a statement Monday saying that Sarah Bloom Raskin, President Biden's nominee to serve as the Federal Reserve's top regulator, "failed to satisfactorily address my concerns" and that he would not support her. Manchin's "no" vote puts her confirmation very much in doubt.