Economy

Employment worries and the pandemic's ongoing obstacles for home buying wore down consumer confidence in November, according to Fannie Mae.

Even with a slight downward revision to September’s numbers, employment in the industry remained incredibly high through October as home-loan refinancing continued to surge.

The economic fallout from COVID-19 has highlighted systemic concerns about commercial real estate exposure, business debt and short-term wholesale funding, the Financial Stability Oversight Council said in an annual report.

Troubled Veteran’s Administration “no-bid” loans could bankrupt servicers in the near future, says Morgan Snyder of CAllc Research Publications.

Even government-sponsored enterprise loans, which have seen forbearance rates drop for 24 weeks in a row, saw a slight uptick.

A new report from California shows that less-regulated mortgage lenders may be doing a better than banks of serving Black and Latino homebuyers. But consumer advocates say the data bolsters the case for tougher supervision of nonbanks.

The price increase illustrates the extent to which federal rescue programs and a supply-demand imbalance have been counterweights to economic pressures from the pandemic.

The Structured Finance Association fears Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin may release the government-sponsored enterprises from conservatorship ahead of the change in administration, and that doing so could disrupt the mortgage-backed securities market.

Gelt Financial looks to troubled sectors, including retail, for prospective deals.

To truly manage risk, banks must invest in more sophisticated modeling, reporting and analytics to track market movements and ultimately maximize profitability, Vice Capital Markets’ Christopher Bennett says.

The move follows a report last year that the government-sponsored enterprise was looking into working with the provider of artificial intelligence-driven credit-risk models.

The Trump administration has moved forward on a plan to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but Joe Biden appointees could take steps to slow or stop their release from conservatorship.

The new capital framework for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a prelude to letting the mortgage giants potentially retain all their earnings. But efforts to privatize the companies could face pushback from the Biden administration.

The 2021 cap is still pretty high, historically speaking, but it’s down from the cap the Federal Housing Finance Agency put in place for a five-quarter period last year.

New-home construction maintained its momentum in October while possible site shutdowns loom.

Rates could be 50 basis points steeper than the MBA’s current projections, which anticipate the 30-year mortgage will average 3.3% next year, up from nearly 3% this year.

Lenders also increased jumbo product availability as well as rolling out new SOFR-indexed ARMs.

There have been several extensions of the policy since it was put into place as a way to sustain originations amid a wave of forbearance allocated to borrowers with government-related loans.

The substantial Series D fundraise fuels speculation on whether Better.com will be the next mortgage company to hop on the IPO trend.

Freddie Mac representatives would not comment on the sudden resignation of Brickman. Interim CEO Michael Hutchins has served as Freddie’s executive vice president of investments and capital markets since January 2015.