Zillow

Zillow Group Inc. jumped in late trading Thursday after the company said it plans to repurchase shares as it makes progress winding down its ill-fated home-flipping business.

The decision raised major questions about what’s next for a company that was pushing deeper into the U.S. housing market as part of its bid to transform itself from an online listings giant into a buyer and seller of thousands of homes a month.

The business hit a major snag in recent months as the company’s algorithms caused it to overpay for houses just as the heated U.S. market began to cool slightly, forcing it to list properties at a loss.

Home sales to the top four iBuying companies more than doubled in Southern California this past spring, jumping 123% from the quarter before to an all-time high of 789 homes, a Zillow analysis shows.

Scrolling Zillow has become a go-to activity for Americans stuck at home pondering real estate upgrades as low interest rates and a shortage of homes to buy fuel the pandemic housing market.

About 3.4 million renters believe themselves to be at risk of eviction, but when the moratorium ends, the actual number may be between 130,000 and 660,000, according to a Zillow report published Monday.

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

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

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

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.

The growing popularity of the company’s websites and apps has earned the company record profits during the fourth quarter, with adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $170 million, according to a statement on Wednesday.

Whether or not the cost of home loans go up may hinge on the labor market recovery, and right now bond yields suggest they are heading in one particular direction long term.

Investors were also reacting to the inauguration of Joe Biden and uncertainty over additional fiscal relief, Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist Sam Khater said.

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.

Mortgage rates, whose movements until now had not reflected gains in the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield, rose 14 basis points this week, according to Freddie Mac.

It’s more of the same when it comes to mortgage rates entering 2021, as once again they have dropped to lowest point in the 50-year history of Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

Mortgage rates rose a basis point this week, ending the year near record lows, according to Freddie Mac.

Fiscal policy concerns, rather than economic data, are driving rate changes right now, economist says

Mortgage rates remained at their lowest level ever this past week, even as 10-year Treasury yields stayed elevated compared to where they were in recent months.

Mortgage rates dropped a basis point this week, reaching the lowest level since Freddie Mac started tracking this data, even though yields on the benchmark 10-year Treasury increased 7 basis points.