Good morning! Today is Thursday, April 1. France orders a nationwide lockdown again after Covid-19 surges. President Biden unveiled a $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan. And no April Fools: Advances in a new supersonic jet will make four-hour flights from New York to London possible.
And in mortgage and housing news …
FHA PREMIUMS: The Mortgage Note reports Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia L. Fudge announced that mortgage insurance on Federal Housing Administration loans will remain the same for the foreseeable future.
HOME SALES: The Mortgage Note reports that pending home sales dropped by 10.6 percent in February, with every region of the nation showing significant declines due largely to low inventory, according to a National Association of Realtors report.
MORTGAGE APPS: The Mortgage Note reports that mortgage applications dropped 2.2 percent for the week,according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly mortgage applications survey.
WOMEN’S MORTGAGE HISTORY: Less than 50 years ago, many mortgage lenders refused to consider a woman’s income. Some asked women for letters promising they would return to work if they had a baby. Others requested statements from their doctors that they were on birth control—or worse.
MISSED MORTGAGE PAYMENT: How a missed mortgage payment can affect your credit score.
SELF-EMPLOYED BUYERS: Wall Street bet on financing self-employed home buyers. Will there be regrets?
MORTGAGE INSURANCE PREMIUMS: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge put an end to speculation that the agency would move to reduce the Federal Housing Authority‘s mortgage insurance premiums by 25 basis points.
MULTIFAMILY BORROWERS: Fannie Mae is taking on housing affordability from the borrower side with a number of new programs.
VACATION RENTAL: Airbnb and Vrbo are overloaded with reservations – more than before the pandemic.
NEW AGENT PLEASE: The real estate industry continues to report that 90 percent of consumers love working with their agent, but when they move again in seven to nine years, only 13 percent work with the same agent.
CRITICAL-LOAD ZONES: A disaster can redraw the map of which local real estate is most desirable. The Texas energy fiasco revealed a secret layer of entire neighborhoods that we now know to be deemed “critical load” zones by power companies.