In a speech to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention on Monday, President and CEO Bob Broeksmit told members that, to paraphrase former President Bill Clinton, the era of big, regulatory government is back. Broeksmit’s remarks addressed a range of issues, from the impact on the industry of the COVID-19 pandemic to minority homeownership. But his central theme for the industry is the political changes made in Washington, D.C. in 2020 are going to have an impact in 2021 — and beyond. Broeksmit said he spoke to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and four of the other Governors of the Federal Reserve. “I always make the same points, too. The MBA supports regulation and legislation that is clear, easy to implement, and helpful…
The housing market in red states is white-hot compared to their blue counterparts, a new analysis finds. As U.S. housing prices remain high and experts predict the trend will continue, states led by Republican legislatures and governors are disproportionately represented among the hottest housing markets in the country, with experts offering a variety of explanations as to why that might be. Data analyst firm CoreLogic noted this month that “home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased year over year by 18.1% in August 2021 compared with August 2020, marking the largest annual gain in home prices in the 45-year history of the CoreLogic Home Price Index.” That price spike was driven by a sharply constricted housing supply that saw homebuyers scrambling to…
With COVID-era forbearance programs coming to an end, some housing activists warned of an approaching flood in forbearance filings. But so far, that hasn’t happened, and the signs are good that forbearance rates will remain low. The end of government forbearance protections is indeed causing an increase in the number of foreclosure filings. ATTOM’s latest Foreclosure Market Report, for Q3 2021, finds scheduled auctions or bank repossessions are up 34% from the previous quarter and 68% from a year ago. However, those increases are from historic lows, as forbearance relief artificially lowered the numbers. In fact, there were just 45,517 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings in the quarter. “Despite the increased level of foreclosure activity in September, we’re still far…
Homeownership for low-income Americans is a major policy plank for countless political leaders, as well as an intensively studied issue among nonprofit and research organizations. The interest is unsurprising: Getting more people at all income levels into homeownership is broadly seen as a net positive for a nation’s economic and social health. In recent years, programs hoping to help low-income buyers enter the market have proliferated throughout the lending industry. Targeted loans, favorable rates, and other measures are designed to boost homebuying among those not in the top echelon of earners. But do those programs work? Many industry leaders seem to believe so. Last week Freddie Mac announced a “multi-billion affordable housing bond program,” one that “provides a 3% down…
When United Wholesale Mortgage CEO Mat Ishbia announced his company would be paying $6,000 stipends to all 133 Michigan State University men’s basketball and football players this school year, some sports fans cheered. But advocates for women’s issues and equity jeered. Ishbia and UWM are longtime supporters of Spartan sports, so it was no surprise when he announced nearly $800,000 in company-funded stipends to all football and basketball players for the 2021-22 school year under the NCAA’s new “Name, Image and Likeness” (NIL) rules. But the lack of support for women’s sports did not go unnoticed. “In 2021, this sort of blatant sexism is unacceptable,” Democratic Michigan state Representative Laurie Pohutsky said when Ishbia announced his plan. “All athletes, regardless of their…
United Wholesale Mortgage CEO Mat Ishbia makes no secret of his Michigan State mania, reportedly dropping more than $30 million on the school’s athletic program this year alone. But the one-time basketball walk-on’s latest MSU payout has current and former employees crying foul. Ishbia announced his company will be paying a generous stipend to all 133 MSU men’s basketball and football players starting this upcoming school year, the Detroit Free Press reports. The news comes as UWM faces a lawsuit over its treatment of employees and ongoing complaints about working conditions at the Pontiac, Michigan-based company. NCAA athletes had long been banned from receiving such payments while playing college sports. But the conference recently changed its player compensation rules to…
Americans made a dent in their debts during the pandemic, according to a new study from QuoteWizard. Analysts for QuoteWizard, an online lead generation marketplace for insurance, monitored thirty-three debt metrics between February 2020 and October 2020. They found that credit scores improved, people made more payments on their student loans, and the number in debt collection dropped. Nationally there was a 10% decrease in subprime credit scores and a 2% decrease in debt collection. Student loan delinquency and credit card delinquency both fell, by 32% and 31% respectively. “Americans having less debt has broader implications across the whole economy. The better your credit score, the less you are going to pay on everything from auto loans and home mortgages…
Signs of softening housing markets and a leveling of mortgage interest rates have some industry observers asking if America is heading back to a ‘normal’ home-buying market. “For first-time buyers, more options and favorable financing offer the promise that after a year of frustrating bidding wars, finding the right home may finally be within reach,” George Ratiu, manager of economic research at Realtor.com said this week. “More listings are coming to the market these days, which is alleviating some of the supply crunch that prompted record increases in home prices.” Marco Santarelli, founder of Norada Real Estate Investments, says “new sellers are entering the market at near-normal levels,” in part thanks to cooling home prices. “Median listing prices in several…
United Wholesale Mortgage CEO Mat Ishbia made headlines with the announcement his company—one of the largest lenders in the U.S.—plans to start accepting Bitcoin as payment for mortgages later this year. “That’s something that we’ve been working on,” Ishbia said, “and we’re excited that hopefully, in Q3, we can actually execute on that before anyone in the country because we are a leader in technology and innovation.” Ishbia’s announcement puts his company on the front line of the debate over the potential dangers of novel techno-currencies like Bitcoin. Bitcoin is among the class of financial products known as “cryptocurrencies,” digital currency systems developed and traded using a variety of computational and security networks. The process of developing and obtaining cryptocurrencies can…
Prospective homebuyers looking to find a house that doesn’t break their bank account should be hoping mostly for just one thing — More homes. That’s because the primary driver of sky-high housing prices is a shortage of housing stock. Absent a sharp increase in the number of houses on the market, prices will likely remain elevated indefinitely, even if demand ends up declining. Experts have pointed to a variety of factors that have contributed to the housing shortage. Chief among them has been the residual effects of the 2008 financial crisis, which reportedly derailed the housing industry significantly enough that there are still significantly fewer houses on the market now than if the recession never occurred. Also cited as an…
