Housing markets

Inflation is the top factor in Chairman Jerome Powell's point of view and that will likely determine if there is no increase or a 25 basis point hike, mortgage industry economists said.

Rates on the 30-year fixed rate mortgage rose during the month, but purchase borrowers using jumbo loans drove activity higher compared with January, Black Knight said.

Having lived through past downturns allows experienced leaders to keep employee engagement high as the mortgage business faces its first rough cycle in over a decade.

Meanwhile, pending home sales are down 16.1% compared to the same time last year but demand is still up from its late-October lull, according to Redfin.

By the end of December, 63% of borrowers saw home values increase by 7.3%, for a collective gain of $1 trillion, CoreLogic's report found.

The share of consumers worried about potential job loss spiked to its highest point in 12 months, leading to a downturn in outlook, according to Fannie Mae.

Other factors have become more influential as refinance speeds have fallen to a more than 20-year low, according to Black Knight's Mortgage Monitor report.

The CFPB is requesting input on adding specifications that are intended to alleviate TRID compliance concerns on construction-to-permanent single-close loans and those requiring separate construction and home loan closings.

In the four weeks through Feb. 26, the median price for a typical home was $350,246, down 0.6% from the same period a year earlier, the brokerage said Thursday.

Purchase and refinance mortgages continued their slide as total origination volume was $475.5 billion during the final months of 2022, down 56% from the end of 2021.

The ownership rate among the group rose 4 percentage points in ten years to top 50%, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors.

While Black-owned residential properties increased in value by 42.5%, compared with 38.2% for all houses, Nicole Bachaud, senior economist with the company noted that "we're still a long way from housing equity."

Prices nationally fell 0.3% in December from the month before, according to seasonally adjusted data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller.  

The share of all-cash deals rose to the highest since 2013 last year, while institutional investors, who usually account for many cash sales, retreated, according to data from real estate data analytics firm Attom. That suggests more regular buyers turned to self funding to dodge punishing mortgage rates.

The National Association of Realtors' index of contract signings to purchase previously owned homes increased 8.1% in January from a month earlier to 82.5. The jump beat all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists, which called for a 1% advance.

Sales of new U.S. homes increased in January by more than expected to the highest level in nearly a year, fueled entirely by purchases in the South, indicating some stabilization in the housing market after a brutal year.

The company said it expects to accelerate its timeline for selling through money-losing inventory, as the data-driven home-flipper looks to move on from a tumultuous year.

Buyer affordability has decreased by almost 22% in the past year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The total price of U.S. homes was $45.3 trillion at the end of 2022, down from a record high of $47.7 trillion in June, according to Redfin's report.

Despite a likely recession, researchers at the government-sponsored enterprise revised volume forecasts upward for both 2023 and 2024, while originators also entered the year expecting their business to improve.