Origination

Home construction starts rose for a fourth-straight month in December to the best pace since late 2006 as builders responded to the robust demand for single-family housing.

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.

The former executive at Lend America, who has remained out of prison since his 2011 guilty plea, will not be incarcerated for his acts.

Remote work and pandemic-induced requirements from the government related agencies forced lenders to pivot on a dime, making it entirely possible that compliance defects will have a larger share in future quarters, Nick Volpe, executive vice president of ACES Quality Management, says.

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.

Bottomed-out mortgage rates cut listing times and housing inventory while sales volume and average prices jumped annually.

Upcoming changes to underwriting regulations, as well as the end of the QM patch, in addition to growing home values, all add up for this market to have a good year.