Mortgages

Property prices could contract an annual 5% by the middle of next year, a senior property economist, said in a research note Monday. He’d previously projected no change in values by that time.

Also, Notarize announces layoff, Lower reveals a cyberattack and M&A activity heats up.

The mortgage REIT announced its name change in conjunction with the internalization of management activities.

Industry experts discuss evolving strategies in the hot MSR market as risks related to prepayments decline but concerns around credit and housing finance firms’ liquidity grow.

The S&P Supercomposite Homedbuilders Index dropped 16% this week as investors grow concerned over a recession and surging mortgage rates.

The agency eased rules regarding delinquency thresholds and reporting regulations through the end of June 2023.

But even with bidding wars on the decline and inventory increasing, listing prices continue to creep up.

Non-depository institutions originated an even greater share of all home loans compared to the year before, according to the Federal Financial Examination Council’s latest analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.

If it works as intended, by calming inflation, it will help to keep mortgage rates low in the long-term.

The mortgage company had experimented with a piggyback product just before the pandemic disrupted the market, and it’s bringing the second-lien portion back as a standalone offering.

These transactions look to add territories or products to counter the effects of origination activity contracting.

The latest Federal Reserve move to combat inflation led to a weekly increase of more than 50 basis points.

The firm cut staff from junior to senior employees in nearly every department and is left with a 325-worker headcount, a spokesperson confirmed.

The rate was 30 basis points higher compared with 2019 due to the record level of mortgage origination during the pandemic, according to Aces Quality Management.

The all-stock deal follows a boom in demand for interim financing on purchases, which HomeLight had been looking to offer on a larger scale.

Prices for new construction dropped in May. In comparison, April construction raised to a 1.81 million rate, the highest since 2006.

Lumber prices have wavered, but gypsum, steel and transportation were still on the rise in the past month, according to a National Association of Home Builders analysis.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency also noted limits to its authority in efforts to free the government-sponsored enterprises from conservatorship in its report to Congress.

The government-sponsored enterprises' new Refinance Application Level Index pulls Desktop Underwriter data in order to give lenders and mortgage-backed securities investors insight into prepayment trends.

Unlike two years ago, when the surge of refinance loans created a vast pool of free financing for the industry to use, today lenders must pay for it by the drink.