Mortgage refinancing exploded in July, according to mortgage data analyst Black Knight. The report shows rate lock volume, the number of borrowers who locked in their mortgage rate, jumped by 5.5% in July. Rate/term refinance grew 24% month-over-month, while cash-out refinance grew 20%. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) decided in mid-July to remove the adverse market refinance fee put in place in 2020. The 0.5% fee was intended to alleviate any future financial burden placed on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the effects of the pandemic. Instead of a downturn, the housing market soared. The boom in refinancing is directly linked to the FHFA’s decision to reverse course. And now “[r]efinance volumes were undoubtedly boosted” by its repeal, Black Knight…
Texas and Arizona dominated top spots in WalletHub’s report on 2021’s best real-estate markets. Half of the top ten markets were in Texas, with Frisco, TX taking the number one spot. Five of the top thirty cities are in Arizona. WalletHub used two dimensions for the ranking: real-estate market data, such as median home prices, median days on the market, and number of seriously underwater mortgages; and economic environment data, such as job growth rate and housing affordability. The number of pending sales in Frisco, a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth, rose by 42% from May 2020 to May 2021. High demand and low inventory forced Frisco’s median sale up by nearly 24% in the same time. The fourth, fifth, and sixth-ranked cities are also…
Private-label mortgages, blamed by some for helping cause the Great Recession of 2008, are on the rise, accounting for 4% of mortgage bonds issued last quarter were private-label mortgages according to the Wall Street Journal. Private-label mortgages are packaged and sold to investors without the guarantees of payment provided by Freddie Mac or Fannie May, and were pivotal in the last financial crisis. The private-label market had more than $42 billion of issuance in the second quarter, more than almost any quarter since 2008. The left-leaning Center for American Progress says private-label lending fed the private-label securities market (PLS) which in turn caused the 2008 market crash. Defenders of the mortgages note private-label mortgage loans are made to people who can’t access loans guaranteed…
Existing-home sales rose 2% on a seasonally adjusted annual rate from June to July, with first-time buyers accounting for 30% of sales, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors®. This marks two consecutive months of increases in home prices. There were no sales declines in any region, with two of the four major U.S. regions seeing gains, while one declined and one was unchanged. Existing home sales, including single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, increased 1.5% from July 2020, up from 5.90 million to 5.99 million. Another sign it’s a sellers market: 89% of homes sold within a month of being put on the market. NAR’s chief economist Lawrence Yun acknowledged that many of the sales remain…
The data and analytics company Black Knight reports the July’s numbers show the national mortgage delinquency rate dropped 5 percent in July and is now approaching pre-pandemic levels. However, about 1.45 million borrowers remained 90 or more days past due – though not yet in foreclosure – more than 1 million more than at the onset of the pandemic. “Delinquencies have now improved in 12 of the last 14 months, with the two monthly increases being calendar-related as opposed to being indicative of worsening performance,” the company reports. Their analysis follows last week’s news that the number of homeowners exiting mortgage forbearance is up. The “total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 14 basis points from 3.40% of…
Mortgage interest rates are remaining low and steady week-over-week, holding firm amid low supply and uncertain expectations about the overall direction the housing market is taking. Rates barely budged compared to last week, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly rate survey, with 30-year, 15-year and 5/1 ARM rates all moving no more than one basis point up or down: The 30-year rate dropped one basis point to 2.86 percent, while the 15-year rate went up one point to 2.16 percent and the 5/1 ARM dropped one point to 2.43 percent. “Mortgage rates stayed relatively flat this week,” Freddie Mac Chief Economist Sam Khater said in the press release. “Housing is in a similar phase of the economic cycle as many other…
The number of Americans filing mortgage applications dropped by several critical short-term metrics this week as signs abounded of an ongoing homebuying slowdown across the country. The Mortgage Bankers Association this week recorded a nearly four percent drop in mortgage applications week over week, posting a 3.9 percent decline in applications relative to the prior seven days. The weekly drop comes after the MBA revealed a yearly drop of more than 25 percent as well as a month-over-month drop of about four percent. MBA Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting Joel Kan pointed out in the weekly report that “mortgage rates were at their highest levels in around a month, with the 30-year fixed rate increasing above 3…
Mortgage applications declined sharply in the past month, plummeting year-over-year and seeing a small but still pronounced decline from the prior month. Applications for new home purchases “decreased 27.4 percent compared from a year ago,” the Mortgage Bankers Association said in its weekly application report. Meanwhile, compared to June 2021, applications decreased by 4 percent.” MBA Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting Joel Khan suggested the steep drop is not as dire as it initially appears. “Mortgage applications for new home purchases declined in July – as is typical most summers when home sales start to moderate – but did come in at the second-strongest July reading since the inception of MBA’s survey in 2012,” he argued in…
The number of homeowners exiting mortgage forbearance increased this week, continuing an optimistic trend that comes alongside steadily improving economic numbers. The “total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 14 basis points from 3.40% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 3.26%,” the Mortgage Bankers Association said in its weekly forbearance report. The drop comes after a similar decrease last week; the decline has been ongoing for over a month, occurring alongside a limping but consistent economic recovery. “The largest decrease in a month in the share of loans in forbearance came from a jump in forbearance exits, as many homeowners are nearing the end of their forbearance terms,” MBA Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni said in…
Multiple diverse housing markets across the U.S. are continuing to observe pronounced dips in home sales as the white-hot real estate market continues a small but steady cooldown after a year of frenzy. In Des Moines, Iowa, home sales were down more than two percent month-over-month in July and nearly seven percent year-over-year. That drop comes amid a notable dip in the number of homes for sale on the market. In Indianapolis, meanwhile, a “year-long streak in increasing sales” came to an end last month, with a roughly identical drop in year-over-year sales as was observed in Des Moines. The “last time area sales fell on a year-over-year basis was in June 2020,” the Indianapolis Business Journal reports. Nashville saw…
