Housing Wire

JANUARY 8, 2025

Higher-for-longer mortgage rates have claimed their first victim of 2025. Ally Financial announced Wednesday that it would exit the mortgage origination business as part of a broader strategy to pursue higher returns on investments. Bloomberg was the first to report the developments.

Closing 418

Closing Mortgages Loan Officer Development 418

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 7, 2024

Mortgage rates have made almost a 2% move lower from the highs of 2023. Now that the jobs week data is in, the question is: can mortgage rates go even lower? Mortgage spreads Another way for mortgage rates to drop to the lowest level of the forecast or below is to improve mortgage spreads.

Mortgages 533

Mortgages Banks As-is Marketing 533

Housing Wire

JANUARY 2, 2025

Rising mortgage rates suppressed applications in the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) final mortgage applications survey index of 2024, released on Thursday. Mortgage demand declined 21.9% Mortgage demand had been on the upswing for much of November and December. from two weeks earlier during the week ending Dec.

FHA loan 468

FHA loan Mortgages VA loan Loans 468

Housing Wire

JULY 23, 2024

Mortgage rates continue to move lower this week even as higher borrowing costs have kept activity subdued across many areas of the housing market. Lower mortgage rates are having a positive impact on application levels, with the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reporting last week that applications were up 3.9%

Mortgages 511

Mortgages MLS Finance Loans 511

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 15, 2024

An often misguided premise I see on social media is that lower mortgage rates are doing nothing for housing demand. Purchase application data First, purchase apps is the fastest way to look for positive or negative data at higher or lower mortgage rates. That’s ok — very few people are looking at the data without an agenda.

Mortgages 521

Mortgages Sales As-is Marketing 521

Housing Wire

DECEMBER 19, 2024

Its late December so all the 2025 mortgage rate forecasts have been published. Most housing market analysts expect mortgage rates to spend the year with a 6 handle. The most optimistic predictions assume 2025 will see mostly low 6s for the 30-year fixed rate mortgage. Unfortunately, all of them are already wrong.

Mortgages 488

Mortgages Fixed-rate mortgage As-is Marketing 488

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 1, 2024

The best part about 2024 has been that higher mortgage rates have created an inventory buffer, so if the economy gets softer and rates fall, we have many more homes to work with than we had in 2020-2023. However, as mortgage rates have fallen recently , I haven’t been able to hit my targets, which isn’t a surprise.

Mortgages 538

Mortgages Banks As-is Sales 538

Housing Wire

AUGUST 4, 2024

Mortgage rates moved massively lower last week without any Federal Reserve rate cuts, primarily because the labor market is getting softer. Can mortgage rates go even lower? We don’t have that variable this year and spreads have improved earlier than I thought, which has helped mortgage pricing.

Mortgages 518

Mortgages Banks As-is Closing 518

Housing Wire

JANUARY 2, 2025

Today, the jobless claims data again showed why mortgage rates continue to be elevated, confirming that the labor market isnt breaking. Mortgage rates have remained mostly in a range over the past two years, fluctuating between 6% and 8%. My forecast for 2025 includes these projected ranges for mortgage rates and the 10-year yield.

Mortgages 505

Mortgages Construction Residential Sales 505

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 28, 2024

Housing demand is very seasonal, so the fact that our pending contract data is firming up lately just shows that lower mortgage rates have stabilized and firmed up demand recently. It will likely take mortgage rates to go under 6% and stay there for an extended period to get real sustained demand growth from record-low sales levels.

Mortgages 525

Mortgages As-is Marketing Sales 525

Housing Wire

AUGUST 17, 2024

Have lower mortgage rates already started to slow down housing inventory? Now, with mortgage rates dropping below that 7.25% level recently, inventory hasn’t been able to hit that growth model once. As mortgage rates rose earlier this year, leading to increased inventory, the price cut percentage grew higher than the last two years.

Mortgages 518

Mortgages Banks Sales As-is 518

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 5, 2024

18 and mortgage rates and bond yields headed higher. But, we have to remember that mortgage rates had already made an almost 2% move lower since the highs of 2023 without rate cuts, as the bond market always gets ahead of the Fed. This explains the rise in mortgage rates since the Fed cut rates.

Mortgages 511

Mortgages As-is Sales Marketing 511

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 4, 2024

Labor over Inflation has been the theme for mortgage rates to go lower in 2024, with the understanding that as soon as the labor market softens, the 10-year yield should head lower, which it has. This is also one reason I have been discussing how mortgage rates have bottomed for 2024. However, it works both ways.

Mortgages 493

Mortgages Construction Residential Sales 493

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 30, 2024

Despite initial concerns that tariffs would push mortgage rates up to 8% and reduce housing demand, this week has brought some encouraging news. The 10-year yield has remained stable at a crucial technical level and even reversed direction, resulting in improved mortgage rates. This is what happened in the last two years.

Mortgages 518

Mortgages As-is Sales Marketing 518

Housing Wire

JANUARY 8, 2025

As mortgage rates continue to climb past the 7% mark, applications continued to take a step back following the New Year’s Day holiday. from the week prior, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported in its weekly mortgage applications survey for the week ending Jan. Demand decreased by 3.7% the previous week.

Mortgages 448

Mortgages Fixed-rate mortgage Loans Sales 448

Housing Wire

DECEMBER 18, 2024

The market reacted badly to the FOMC statement and remarks by Federal Reserve Chairman Powell during the Q&A presser, sending the 10-year yield and mortgage rates higher. What he got is higher mortgage rates again. I’ve been cautious about getting to sub-6% mortgage rates until the labor breaks. So what gives?

Mortgages 448

Mortgages Marketing As-is 448

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 21, 2024

The difference is mortgage rates: even with inventory growing at a healthy clip this year, mortgage rates just heading down toward 6% for a brief period of time resulted in higher prices in a seasonally soft period. However, that didn’t happen. from September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.96 million in October.

Mortgages 492

Mortgages Finance Sales As-is 492

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 11, 2024

On this crazy day with the bond market, mortgage rates dropped to another yearly low after the CPI inflation print. That means some borrowers are getting mortgage rate quotes under 6% today, so the rate environment has improved greatly from the highs around 7.50% this year. The mortgage spreads are improving in 2024.

Mortgages 514

Mortgages Loans Sales Marketing 514

Housing Wire

JANUARY 3, 2025

Reverse mortgage professionals made more inroads into the forward mortgage industry in 2024. This happened through dedicated conversations, partnerships between reverse and forward mortgage companies, and expanded activities in reverse that stemmed from acquisitions and expansions of existing divisions.

Mortgages 418

Mortgages Lending Loan Officer Loans 418

Housing Wire

AUGUST 6, 2024

The downward movement in mortgage rates over the past few months accelerated last week as a cooler-than-expected jobs report and indications of a Federal Reserve rate cut led to a steep drop in loan pricing. Several reported that mortgage rates rose again on Tuesday due to weaker mortgage-backed securities prices.

Mortgages 505

Mortgages Loans Lending Equity 505

Housing Wire

JANUARY 10, 2025

Todays jobs report beat expectations, and in fact, the labor data was solid for jobs week, which means mortgage rates will stay elevated because its always about labor over inflation when talking about rates. So, what does this mean for mortgage rates? Today’s mortgage pricing is 7.24% and the 10 year yield is at 4.76%.

Mortgages 488

Mortgages Residential Construction As-is 488

Housing Wire

JANUARY 8, 2025

California -based direct lender AmeriTrust Mortgage announced a new addition to its leadership team. The company welcomed veteran mortgage executive Jett Farrington this week as its new chief operating officer. Schoep told HousingWire that Farrington has a proven track record of leadership, expansion and mortgage industry expertise.

Mortgages 397

Mortgages Loans Industrial Banks 397

Housing Wire

AUGUST 1, 2024

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 6.62% on Thursday, a new low for 2024 that appears to be tied to the expectation that the Federal Reserve could move to cut interest rates at its next meeting in September. This is according to data reported by Mortgage News Daily. It doesn’t look like an overheating economy.

Mortgages 518

Mortgages Fixed-rate mortgage Banks As-is 518

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 22, 2024

Have we seen the bottom in mortgage rates for 2024 after a crazy roller coaster ride so far this year? My 2024 forecast had a mortgage rate range of 7.25%-5.75%. To get to the lower end of this range, we needed to see two things: the labor market getting softer and the mortgage spreads improving. Yes, here’s how and why.

Mortgages 525

Mortgages Sales As-is Marketing 525

Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 19, 2024

The Federal Reserve cut rates on Wednesday and mortgage rates went up! The 10-year yield and 30-year mortgage rates have been in a slow dance since 1971 and trended together. The growth of housing permits is a good sign for economic expansion, and falling mortgage rates since June have helped push this data line. What happened?

Mortgages 531

Mortgages Marketing As-is Industrial 531

Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 11, 2024

Zillow is moving full speed ahead with an ambitious expansion of its mortgage business, leveraging its housing tech innovations to potentially reshape how modern homebuyers finance homes. billion in purchase mortgage business, not far off a top 50 spot on the mortgage leaderboard. That’s an annualized $3.2

Mortgages 459

Mortgages Loan Officer Loans Agents 459

Housing Wire

JANUARY 14, 2025

Mortgage rates continued their ascent this week after Fridays jobs report showed that employers added more positions than expected in December, which is likely to cement a pause on interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve later this month. Merritt thinks mortgage lenders could take some comfort in that trend.

Mortgages 418

Mortgages Banks Loans Finance 418

Housing Wire

JANUARY 20, 2025

This housing market is on hold until mortgage rates come down. We knew that mortgage rates over 7% were possible for the year, and here we are. I still expect well spend most of the year under 7% for the 30-year fixed rate mortgage , but until that happens, home sales are at a standstill. When will that be? I have no idea.

Sales 396

Sales Mortgages Staging Fixed-rate mortgage 396

Housing Wire

JANUARY 16, 2025

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this week warned consumers in all 50 states that fraudsters are posing as mortgage lenders by calling homeowners and asking them to pony up on payments. The FCC estimates that Green Mirage has impersonated over 400 mortgage lenders.

Mortgages 363

Mortgages Lending As-is Agents 363

Housing Wire

DECEMBER 23, 2024

Over the past year, members of the reverse mortgage industry have been making a more concerted effort to connect with their counterparts in the forward mortgage space. And some reverse-only companies have aimed to establish firmer ties with the much larger forward mortgage industry.

Lending 396

Lending Mortgages Industrial Finance 396

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 30, 2024

Lower mortgage rates in September had a measurable impact on home sales. Pending home sales data is the latest sign that falling mortgage rates in August and September boosted home sales. According to data released Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), pending home sales in September jumped 7.4% year over year.

Sales 476

Sales Mortgages As-is Finance 476

Housing Wire

AUGUST 2, 2024

Prospective borrowers with strong credit are locking in mortgages this week at the lowest rates in more than a year, loan officers and lending executives told HousingWire on Friday. This generally matches up with data from Mortgage News Daily , which looks at marketed rates for strong credit profiles. Is it right for the client?”

Mortgages 514

Mortgages FHA loan Loans Loan Officer 514

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 30, 2024

A 60 basis point increase in mortgage rates in October has strangled mortgage demand, particularly for refinancings , according to the latest survey data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Mortgage applications overall decreased 0.1% The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 43.1% the previous week.

Mortgages 468

Mortgages Loans Sales Marketing 468

Housing Wire

DECEMBER 27, 2024

Reverse mortgage business and mortgage business generally is not where people want it to be. That was a repeated idea shared by a group of reverse mortgage professionals when asked to assess what they see as the biggest industry challenges of the year. I think that’s true from an industry standpoint.

Industrial 397

Industrial Mortgages Principal Lending 397

Housing Wire

JANUARY 7, 2025

a figure substantially higher than year-ago levels due to ongoing mortgage rate optimism. The index reported that consumers continue to expect mortgage rates to decline over the next 12 months. In December 2024, the share of consumers that expected mortgage rate shrinkage held steady at 42%, lower than November’s 45%.

Mortgages 397

Mortgages Marketing 397

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 22, 2024

Mortgage rates continue to rise, serving as a bucket of cold water for lenders and consumers that were warming to lower borrowing costs just a few months ago. According to HousingWire ‘s Mortgage Rates Center , the average 30-year conforming rate was 6.61% on Tuesday. With mortgage rates back above 6.5%

Mortgages 468

Mortgages Marketing Construction Sales 468

Housing Wire

OCTOBER 31, 2024

In the halls of the Colorado Convention Center on Monday, it was hard not to overhear mortgage bankers gnashing their teeth over the rumored price hikes for Fair Isaac Corp (FICO) scores. per score to all mortgage lenders, independent of their volume. “It’s an abuse of power, a complete monopoly.” What will it cost?

Industrial 468

Industrial Mortgages Closing costs Lending 468