Category: News and Trends

With mortgage rates all but certain to creep up this year following the Federal Reserve’s decision to boost key interest rates, Black Knight Financial Services, Jacksonville, Fla., said the refinance window that’s been open for years could start to close.

Fitch Ratings, New York, said home improvement spending is in line for another steady increase this year. 

Black Knight Financial Services, Jacksonville, Fla., said its First Look Mortgage Monitor showed foreclosure starts hit a nine-year low in November with fewer than 700,000 active foreclosures remaining in the pipeline.

MBA NewsLink recently posed questions to Mark McElroy, president and CEO of Pavaso, Plano, Texas, a provider of services for closings and the rest of the homeownership life cycle.

Bill Emerson, chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association and CEO of Quicken Loans Inc., Detroit, issued the following statement regarding inclusion of the Jumpstart GSE reform provision within a $1.1 trillion year-end spending bill passed by Congress, which would prevent the administration from selling off its stake in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac without congressional approval. 

The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac completed 54,744 foreclosure prevention actions in the third quarter, bringing total foreclosure prevention actions to just under 3.6 million since the start of the conservatorships in September 2008. 

Commercial and multifamily mortgage debt outstanding continued to climb in the third quarter, driven by increases in the dollar amount of loans held in bank portfolios according to MBA’s Commercial/Multifamily Real Estate Mortgage Debt Outstanding report.

Fannie Mae, Washington, D.C., said mortgage lenders continue to report that they have eased and expect to continue easing their credit standards in the coming year.

HOPE NOW said its members provided 109,000 mortgage assistance actions in October, down slightly from September.

CoreLogic, Irvine, Calif., said 256,000 properties regained equity in the third quarter, bringing the total number of mortgaged residential properties with equity at the end of the quarter to 46.3 million, or 92.0 percent of all homes with an outstanding mortgage.