T.J. Durkin has been named CEO of AG Mortgage Investment Trust, the company announced in a press release. Durkin, who currently serves as President and as a member of the Board, will continue both of those roles. He will replace David Roberts, who has served as CEO since 2011 but will resign as Chairman, CEO, and as a member of the board due to his pending retirement. “In early 2021, we set out to reposition and simplify the Company’s mission – to become a leading, pure-play residential credit REIT,” said Roberts. “T.J. and his team have achieved this transformation at a rapid pace and I am confident that under T.J.’s leadership, MITT will continue to be well positioned in executing…
The historically low delinquency rate dropped further in August, closing in on May 2022’s record low, but rising foreclosure starts may cause it to increase, according to Black Knight’s First Look at August 2022 mortgage data. Nationally, delinquencies dropped 3.6% in August to 2.79%. This is just four basis points above May’s record. Improvements were seen across the spectrum of borrowers, with the number of those owing only a single late payment down 4%. Those 90 or more days delinquent fell by 4.5%. Cure activity also increased, with 62,000 seriously delinquent loans curing to current status. Cure rates refer to loans that were delinquent in the prior month but are now current. Start activity rose 15% from July, though it…
Mortgage rates jumped by a quarter point this week in the wake of another 75-point rate hike from the Central Bank, Freddie Mac reported Thursday. Freddie’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) found that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 6.29%, up from 6.02% just last week. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 2.88%. “The housing market continues to face headwinds as mortgage rates increase again this week, following the 10-year Treasury yield’s jump to its highest level since 2011,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist. “Impacted by higher rates, house prices are softening, and home sales have decreased. However, the number of homes for sale remains well below normal levels.” Existing-home sales dropped for the…
By TMN Editor The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants the public to weigh in on ways to improve the mortgage process for homeowners who would benefit from refinancing. They are especially looking for borrowers with smaller loan balances. CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement that the mortgage market has not provided products that allow all households to save money by refinancing at a lower interest rate. “We are eager for input on ways that borrowers taking out loans today can refinance to lower rates in the future,” Chopra said. According to a press release, the agency is also looking for input on automatic short-term and long-term loss mitigation assistance for homeowners who experience financial disruptions. For more information,…
As first-time buyers struggle to find an affordable home, many Millennials say they are willing to co-buy in order to access bigger mortgages. Pairadime, a new fractional ownership solution with a focus on co-buying, surveyed 1,000 Millennials who say they don’t want to wait for marriage to co-buy a home. Instead, they want to co-buy with their parents, friends, or other family members in order to afford a house in current market conditions. Only 4% of respondents said they would wait until marriage to buy with another person. “During the pandemic, people have been renting and they may have wanted more space, and so they looked at, perhaps, their roommate and decided, ‘Let’s go buy a home together,'” Jessica Lautz,…
Luxury home sales tanked by 28.1% YOY in the three months ending August 31, the biggest drop since 2012, according to new Redfin data. The decline overtook even the 23.2% drop that happened at the beginning of the pandemic, when home sales slowed to a crawl in every area. Non-luxury home sales also fell by the largest margin on record, but in a far less dramatic drop of 19.5%, a change of 0.5%. The same stressors that are beating down the non-luxury market are impacting high-end buyers: low inventory, rising rates, and economic uncertainty. “High-end-house hunters are getting sticker shock when they see the impact of rising mortgage rates on paper. For a luxury buyer, a higher interest rate can…
By TYRONE TOWNSEND and KIMBERLEY HAAS Wells Fargo leadership has laid off employees in a move that is being blamed on a dramatically smaller originations market. In a statement to The Mortgage Note, Spokesperson Jennifer Langan said the latest Mortgage Bankers Association forecast has total originations for 2022 at $2.4T, down 40% year-over-year, with refinances down over 70%. “The home lending displacements are the natural result of cyclical changes in the broader home lending environment, as has been acknowledged by most mortgage providers across the industry. Employees affected by these changes have each been an essential part of our success. We are carrying out displacements in a transparent and thoughtful manner and providing assistance, such as severance and career counseling,”…
Existing-home sales dropped for the seventh straight month in August, down 0.4% from July and 19.9% YOY, according to the National Association of Realtors’ most recent data. Sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.80 million and declined in every major region. Inventory of unsold homes fell 1.5% from July to 1.28 million, breaking a five-month streak of increases. This is a 3.2 months supply at the current sales pace. “The housing sector is the most sensitive to and experiences the most immediate impacts from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy changes,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “The softness in home sales reflects this year’s escalating mortgage rates. Nonetheless, homeowners are doing well with near nonexistent distressed…
Mortgage loan application volume increased by 3.8% last week, breaking a multi-week pattern of steep declines, despite rates rising to their highest point since October 2008. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly survey shows that the adjusted Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, rose by 3.8%. The results include an adjustment for Labor Day. The adjusted purchase index rose 1%, while the unadjusted purchase index increased 11% and was 30% lower YOY. The refinance index rosed by 10% and was 83% lower than the same time last year. Refis made up 32.5% of total applications. “Treasury yields continued to climb higher last week in anticipation of the Federal Reserve’s September meeting, where it is expected that they…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS Leaders at Bank of America provided corporate funding for a new documentary exploring how people in the United States grappled with the Holocaust. “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” a three-part, six-hour series by Ken Burns is running on PBS this week and all the episodes are available online. On a PBS website promoting the documentary, it says, “Americans consider themselves a ‘nation of immigrants,’ but as the catastrophe of the Holocaust unfolded in Europe, the United States proved unwilling to open its doors to more than a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge… Did the nation fail to live up to its ideals? This is a history to be reckoned with.” Burns…
