MBA Newslinks Archive

“Last week, mortgage rates dropped to their lowest level since the week of the November 2016 election as investors sought safety given the tense geopolitical environment–especially the concerns with respect to North Korea. This drop in rates led to an increase in refinance activity as borrowers took advantage of the opportunity.”–MBA Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni.

“The outlook for growth in the U.S. economy over the next three years looks slightly weaker overall than that of three months ago.”–Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Survey of Professional Forecasters

“Banks flush with deposits have enthusiastically competed for jumbo loans. Lenders with the ability to keep jumbo loans on their portfolios have been able to offer lower rates as they do not pay guarantee fees to the GSEs on these loans, and guarantee fees are more than double their level pre-crisis.”–From the MBA Chart of the Week: Spreads Between Jumbo and Conforming Loans.

“Steep rental rates and an increasingly limited supply of quality office space, especially in large blocks, in downtown submarkets will continue to lead more tenants to look for space in suburban markets.”–CBRE Executive Managing Director of Advisory and Transaction Services Scott Marshall.

“The year-over-year increase in applications to homebuilders for new home purchase mortgages slowed down somewhat in July after relatively strong showings in May and June.”–MBA Vice President of Research and Economics Lynn Fisher.

“Mortgage rates decreased last week, which led to the highest volume of refinance applications since mid-June. The slight drop in rates likely reflected concerns about weakness in certain data released earlier in the week, such as the drop in auto sales, but the market also reacted to stronger than expected job growth in Friday’s employment report.”–MBA Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni.

“In order to convince congressional leaders to quickly advance this important proposal through the Senate Banking Committee and to the Senate floor, we must increase bipartisan support for the proposal.”–Mortgage Bankers Association Senior Vice President for Legislative and Political Affairs Bill Killmer in a Call to Action supporting transitional licensing for mortgage loan originators.

“Occupancy rates are still healthy in almost all major markets. Furthermore, the trend in a select few markets such as Denver and San Jose [Calif.] may suggest these previously sluggish markets are beginning to improve from their 2016 troughs.”–Axiometrics Real Estate Analyst Carl Whitaker.

“Balancing taxpayer protection, investor returns and consumer costs is critical to realizing a more stable housing finance system going forward.”–From a new MBA paper, GSE Reform: Consumer Costs in a Reformed System, which examines MBA’s plan to build a stable foundation for the secondary mortgage market and how it would impact borrowers in the single-family market.

“Many agency eligible loan programs have been updated so that underwriting parameters for adjustable-rate mortgages more closely align with their existing fixed rate counterparts. In many cases this means higher loan to value ratios on existing ARMs loan programs, which exerted an upward pressure on the MCAI. This change affected conforming loan programs as well as agency jumbo programs, which focus on loans in high cost areas that exceed the baseline conforming loan limit of $424,000 but which are still eligible for purchase by the GSEs.”–MBA Vice President of Research and Economics Lynn Fisher.