Mortgages

U.S. home construction starts strengthened in November to the fastest pace in eight months, suggesting builders are making a bit more headway on backlogs even as supply and labor constraints linger.

However, the unusual profitability residential finance firms have previously enjoyed, and a strong housing market, could help to sustain their bottom lines.

Federal Reserve officials intensified their battle against the hottest inflation in a generation by shifting to end their asset-buying program earlier and signaling they favor raising interest rates in 2022 at a faster pace than economists were expecting.

Purchases inched upward, but refinance volumes retreated, with interest rates now well above levels from a year ago.

A Dallas policy that is supposed to tackle affordable housing shortages doesn't do enough to address systemic racial and economic barriers residents face, according to a new report.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency found several comments that could lead to fair lending concerns in the “neighborhood description” section of reports.

Younger home buyers accounted for more than half of Veterans Affairs purchase mortgages, with Virginia Beach and Washington seeing the greatest number of applications.

Error findings related to income and employment reached a high point since Aces Quality Management started its report in 2016.

There is no room to unfairly criticize the determination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to properly fulfill its regulatory roll in mortgage servicing, writes the founder of the Maine Attorney Saving Homes program.

Following the announcement of a shift in her political ambitions, Attorney General Letitia James signaled to servicers that she’s watching compliance around pandemic-related mortgage relief closely.

Activity is down 20% from one year ago, driven by a 65% falloff in rate and term refinancings, Black Knight said.

“Rent of shelter” — a category that makes up a third of the CPI basket of goods and services prices — is up 3.9% from November 2020. That’s the most in 14 years but still pales in comparison to many private-sector metrics.

More than half of respondents to a recent Arizent survey think one-stop shops will be the biggest disruptor in the next three years, followed by all-cash purchase programs and iBuyers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seems to have been turned loose by Chopra in a redux of the bad old days under former director Richard Cordray, when the agency inflicted punishment on the mortgage industry often without any basis in fact, writes Whalen.

However, the seven institutions in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency study service 13% fewer loans compared with the third quarter of last year.

CFO Kevin Ryan will handle the day-to-day running of the company, as it works toward going public via its revised SPAC merger.

While qualifying got a little tougher for entry-level buyers with lower incomes in November, some other prospective borrowers had an easier time of it.

While over 112,000 loans exited plans in the past week, there is only a modest opportunity for continued improvement in the near term, Black Knight said.

Now that the Department of Housing and Urban Development clarified that participating in these programs does not create a fair lending violation, lenders and fair housing advocates wonder whether more mortgage lenders will actually participate.

Bigger loans make mortgage bonds riskier for investors. When homeowners have larger loans, they become more likely to refinance even with relatively small declines in interest rates.