Spring Is Here: What To Expect This Season

By CHUCK GREEN As the traditional spring homebuying season begins, a lack of inventory, high interest rates, and economic uncertainty due to banking troubles have dominated the news. So what can people expect? Rick Sharga, president and CEO of CJ Patrick Company in California, told The Mortgage Note that it’s “unlikely to be a banner period for home sales. Extremely low inventory of homes for sale coupled with poor affordability are likely to keep sales activity fairly weak, even though seasonal trends usually see sales and prices increase during the spring and summer months.” Although the second quarter is typically the peak season for home sales, that has been disrupted in recent years, noted Sharga. “This seasonal trend didn’t happen…

Homelessness Report Released By HUD Officials

By KIMBERLEY HAAS Homelessness has risen for individuals and people with disabilities, according to the 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report released on Monday by officials at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Homelessness among single individuals increased by 3.1%. The number of people with disabilities experiencing homelessness for long periods of time increased by 16% between 2020 and 2022. The report found 582,462 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2022. States with the highest numbers of people who were homeless in 2022 include California (171,521), New York (74,178), Florida (25,959), Washington (25,211), and Texas (24,432). Officials say the Biden-Harris Administration is working to reverse the post-2016 trend of rising homelessness. Their goal is to…

Bad Behavior In Lending: Sham Job Interviews, “Rampant” Fraud

By CHUCK GREEN Alleged bad behavior and fraudulent activity in the mortgage industry have made news headlines in recent years and despite attempts to get lending leaders to shape up their ships, at least one person who reports on these issues says problems are common, even “rampant.” One of the most recent examples of these alleged incidents involved sham job interviews for Black and female candidates at Wells Fargo & Company. Wells Fargo in California has approximately $1.9 trillion in assets. They serve one in three U.S. households and more than 10% of small businesses in the United States. According to former executive Joe Bruno, company leaders at Wells Fargo allegedly put minority candidates through the interview process for positions…

Millennials Dominate In America’s Biggest Metros

Despite challenging conditions for first-time homebuyers, Millennials are actively engaging in the housing market, especially in the nation’s largest metros, according to a new analysis from LendingTree. The analysis found that Millennials– people aged 25 to 40 in 2021– make up a majority of homebuyers in most of the US’s largest metros, especially Denver, Seattle, and Boston.  Of mortgages offered in Denver, 63.3% were offered to Millennials. In Seattle, 61.35% were offered to Millennials, and in Boston, 61.08%. Miami, Jacksonville, and Tampa have the smallest share of buyers in this age group, at 46.54% across all three markets. San Francisco, New York, and San Jose have the greatest portion of older Millennials, with an average age of 33.51%, while Indianapolis,…

Getting Pushed Out Of The Housing Market? You’re Not Alone

By KIMBERLEY HAAS Low-income and minority buyers will continue to be crowded out of the housing market in 2022, according to the director of research at the AEI Housing Center. The American Enterprise Institute is located in Washington, D.C., and during a webinar on Monday, Director of Research Tobias Peter said entry-level homebuyers are being replaced by borrowers with higher incomes in many markets. “When we tally up the entry-level share of all home sales, we’re finding that the entry-level, as of December of 2021, accounted for 52.7%, which is, of course, much down from before the pandemic. In December of 2019, it was at 59.9%, and when we started tracking this back in 2012, it was at 71%,” Peter…

MBA: Pace Of Forbearance Exits Drops To Lowest Since June 2020

The total number of loans in forbearance fell from 1.67% of servicers’ portfolio volume to 1.41% in December 2021, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Loan Monitoring Survey. The pace of monthly forbearance exits is at its lowest point since MBA began tracking exits in June 2020. MBA estimates 705,000 homeowners are currently in forbearance plans. Independent mortgage banks saw a 0.28% decline from 1.94% to 1.66%, while depositories saw a 0.28% drop from 1.52% to 1.24%. The share of forborne Fannie and Freddie loans fell to 0.68%, down by 8 basis points, while Ginnie Mae loans fell from 2.10% to 1.63%, down 47 basis points. PLS and portfolio loans in forbearance dropped by 51 basis points to 3.43%.…

Is Home Ownership More Affordable Than Renting? It Depends.

By KIMBERLEY HAAS A report released this month suggests that despite rising home prices it is more affordable to own a median-priced house than to rent a three-bedroom property in a majority of the United States. ATTOM’s 2022 Rental Affordability Report used fair-market rent data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and sales deed data in 1,154 counties to find that home ownership will be more affordable in a majority of the country again in 2022. Todd Teta, Chief Product Officer at ATTOM, said home ownership still remains the more affordable option for average workers because it takes up a smaller portion of their pay when the math is…

MBA: Forbearances Fell To 1.67% In November

The total number of loans in forbearance fell from 2.06% of servicers’ portfolio volume to 1.67% in November, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Loan Monitoring Survey. MBA estimates 835,000 homeowners are currently in forbearance plans. Independent mortgage banks saw a 0.34% decline from 2.28% to 1.94%, while depositories saw a 0.5% drop from 2.02% to 1.52%. The share of forborne Fannie and Freddie loans fell to 0.76%, down by 16 basis points, while Ginnie Mae loans fell to 2.10%, down 42 basis points. PLS and portfolio loans in forbearance dropped by 106 basis points to 3.94%. “The share of loans in forbearance in November declined – albeit at a slower pace than October – as borrowers continued to…

Hot Market, Inflation Causes Rental Rates To Skyrocket In America

By KIMBERLEY HAAS More than a quarter of the states in the country have experienced a rental price increase of 20% or more in 2021 and a senior research analyst says people moving out of cities and into more rural communities are partially to blame. Nick VinZant works for QuoteWizard by LendingTree. He co-authored an article that was published this month which shows that Florida had the highest percentage increase in the nation at 29%. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Florida is about $1,425. Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington all saw rents increase by more than 20% for one-bedroom apartments in 2021, according…

Delinquency Rate Dropped 4.25% In October

The national delinquency rate continued to improve at a slow but steady pace last month, with especially impactful declines for loans overdue by 30 days or more, according to Black Knight’s October 2021 “first look” report. Delinquencies dropped another 4.25% at the end of October to 3.74%. The decline was pushed by significant changes in longer delinquencies. Loans 30 or more days past due dropped by 82,000, bringing their total below 2 million for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.  Serious delinquencies also saw huge drops, declining by 10%, or 127,000 loans. Black Knight attributes that dip to the first wave of homeowners in forbearance beginning to make payments again. The report predicts more improvement in this…