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Sales of previously owned homes increased unexpectedly in December, capping the best year for the housing market since 2006 as historically low mortgage rates helped power demand.

Plus, 4Q earnings show strong mortgage volumes, growth forecasted for jumbo loan market and more.

Appointee Jenn Jones spent the last four years as the chief of policy and membership at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, an organization fighting housing and lending discrimination.

Despite that decline, the company notched its second-best quarterly earnings ever over that period.

The investments, part of a post-merger effort to wring out more profits, include new commercial and mortgage lending platforms.

Dave Uejio, who served as chief of staff to ex-Director Richard Cordray, was named by the Biden administration to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until the Senate confirms Rohit Chopra for the permanent job.

After last week’s spike, mortgage rates dropped back to near historic lows, as broader worries about the pandemic and the economy came back to the fore for investors.

What if mortgage lenders could earn borrowers’ confidence and affection even earlier, so that they would turn to them repeatedly for other loans, including that initial mortgage, CampusDoor CEO Steve Winnie asks.

The administration faces a slew of immediate financial policy tasks, such as passing a new round of small-business aid, charting a course for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and filling vacant agency leadership posts.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development bulletin waives “non-citizens” language in the FHA’s handbook, which one Trump administration official had claimed made DACA recipients ineligible for FHA loans.

The Biden administration could encourage the FHFA to increase the caps or restore exclusions for certain types of loans, which would boost overall volumes.

After a pivotal Supreme Court ruling last year, the Trump administration’s handpicked leader of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was widely expected to leave voluntarily or be fired by the new president.

Homebuilder confidence slipped to a four-month low in January as firms became slightly less optimistic about sales against a backdrop of higher house prices and construction costs.

Mortgage applications decreased 1.9% from one week earlier as rising rates started to affect refinance activity, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The company’s 4Q originations were down from the same time in 2019 and the number of overall loans for 2020 marked a decline from the year before.

In a request for information, the agency sought feedback on how it should prioritize climate risks as part of its supervision of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.

The government-sponsored enterprises’ moratoria will now continue well past inauguration day, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The nominees, strongly backed by progressive Democrats to lead two key Wall Street watchdogs, signal that the Biden administration is planning tough oversight after four years of light-touch policies under appointees of President Trump.

The CFPB’s allegations are similar to unresolved accusations Connecticut first levied against the company in 2018.

Despite mortgage rates expected to rise modestly in 2021, a bolstered Biden administration stimulus package and COVID-19 vaccination efforts bring promise for economic recovery.