MBA Newslinks Archive

“Declining home sales and homebuilding activity, coupled with slower gains in permitting for improvement projects, will put the brakes on remodeling growth over the coming year. However, if falling mortgage interest rates continue to incentivize home sales, refinancing, and ultimately remodeling activity, the slowdown may soften some.”–Chris Herbert, Managing Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

“The second quarter of every year has always shown a quarterly increase, going as far back as 2005. So, with mortgage rates dipping to new lows, it’s no surprise that people were wanting to buy a home, even if prices were at their peak. We expect to see milder home prices in the coming quarters.”–Todd Teta, chief product officer with ATTOM Data Solutions, Irvine, Calif.

“Kristy is an active MBA member and industry leader who will serve MBA and its members exceptionally well. She is results-driven and brings a unique perspective, vision and leadership skill set. I’m excited to have her on our leadership ladder.”–MBA Chairman Christopher M. George, President and CEO of CMG Financial, San Ramon, Calif., on MBA’s nomination of Kristy Fercho of Flagstar Bank, Troy, Mich., as 2020 MBA Vice Chair.

“Over the past decade, the regulatory change experienced by the mortgage lending industry has been “massive in both its breadth and complexity. “This has not occurred in isolation, but rather transpired during a time of equally rapid technological change. Together, these developments have had a significant economic impact on mortgage lenders and servicers. Consequently, it is now necessary for the Bureau to assess whether its rulemaking activities have achieved their statutory objectives in a way that does not unnecessarily burden regulated entities or unduly restrict consumer access to safe and affordable mortgage credit.”–MBA Senior Vice President of Residential Policy and Member Engagement Pete Mills, in a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“While we did downgrade our forecast for 2019 as a whole, we are expecting solid performance for the summer months with U.S. air travel bookings and vacation intentions on the incline.”–STR Senior Vice President of Lodging Insights Jan Freitag.

“At a high level, the role of federal regulators with respect to credit scoring models should be to ensure such models exceed a minimum threshold of predictive capacity, while also remaining in compliance with fair lending requirements. If the CFPB or any other regulator was able to regularly change the weighting of various model inputs, or remove certain inputs altogether, the predictive capacity of the models could be seriously jeopardized. Such actions would then result in less sustainable mortgage lending, which would harm the very consumers that policymakers and market participants are attempting to better serve.” –MBA Senior Vice President Bill Killmer, in a letter to House Financial Services Committee leadership expressing concerns with provisions in the Clarity in Credit Score Formation Act of 2019, under consideration this week.

“Ongoing concerns about economic growth and trade policy likely kept some potential buyers out of the market despite lower mortgage rates. Our seasonally adjusted estimate of new home sales was down in June after two of the strongest months in the survey’s history dating back to 2013, but remained higher than a year ago.”–Joel Kan, MBA Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting.

“Credit availability has generally increased in 2019 as lenders have worked to meet affordability challenges. Because mortgage rates have recently fallen and home price growth has decelerated in many markets, credit availability may stabilize at its current levels.”–Joel Kan, MBA Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting.

“FHA can make changes to expand loan eligibility and encourage more servicer and investor participation.”–From an MBA/American Bankers Association letter to HUD outlining recommendations to improve its FHA Single-Family Loan Sale Program.

“With wage growth still not threatening inflation, the Fed will still likely cut rates in July. The rebound confirms that the jobs market is hardly crumbling, but there were a number of signs that the pace of labor market tightening has cooled.”–Sarah House, Senior Economist with Wells Fargo Securities, Charlotte, N.C., on Friday’s June jobs report.