Category: Top National News

Wall Street Journal, Mar. 26, 2018–Christina Rexrode (subscription)Refinancings make up a smaller portion of the mortgage business than at any time in the past two decades, posing a challenge for lenders who already fear higher interest rates and climbing house prices could eventually depress purchase activity.

National Mortgage News, Mar. 22, 2018–Kate Berry (subscription)The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking comment on whether it should change any regulations it inherited from other federal agencies.

Mortgage Daily, Mar. 22, 2018To fund planned technology investments in the Federal Housing Administration, HUD Secretary Ben Carson proposed a new fee.

Washington Post, Mar. 22, 2018–Michele LernerA recent “Retirement and Mortgages” survey by American Financing, a national mortgage banker, found 44 percent of Americans age 60 to 70 have a mortgage when they retire, with as many as 17 percent saying they may never pay it off.

Mortgage Daily, Mar. 22, 2018Economists at Freddie Mac raised the outlook for refinances and lowered expected purchase financing for this year, dragging down the overall forecast.

National Mortgage Professional, Mar. 20, 2018–Phil HallCommercial/multifamily mortgage debt outstanding reached $3.18 trillion at the end of 2017, a 6.7 percent increase from the $200.3 billion level reached one year earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Wall Street Journal, Mar. 20, 2018–Andrew Ackerman (subscription)Senators are pressing House lawmakers not to jeopardize what they see as their best opportunity to ease postcrisis financial regulations, urging them to quickly pass bipartisan Senate legislation without making changes.

National Mortgage News, Mar. 20, 2018–Kate Berry (subscription)Critics of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have long pinned their hopes on converting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s leadership structure from a single director to a five-member commission. But with the recently passed Senate regulatory relief bill excluding such a measure, and that bill’s fate resting in the hands of moderate Democrats opposed to changes in the CFPB’s structure, such a measure is now dead on arrival.

National Mortgage News, Mar. 20, 2018–Bonnie Sinnock (subscription)The new Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reporting requirements have been in place since the beginning of the year, but lenders are still adjusting to how they work in practice.

Mortgage Daily, Mar. 20, 2018Monthly residential production picked up at the Federal Housing Administration, with reverse mortgage endorsements spiking. Single-family delinquency was down, and commercial mortgage endorsements jumped.