Real estate
fromwww.housingwire.com
20 hours agoWhy the hiring rate matters more than unemployment for the housing market
The labor market remains strong with low unemployment, impacting housing stability and reducing risks of distressed inventory.
DFI alleges that Newrez engaged in unfair or deceptive practices that affected 29 Washington consumers by failing to mediate in good faith during foreclosure proceedings, providing misleading information, and responding to concerns untimely.
Yasser has such an incredible drive and understands that our business is rooted in the success of those around us, including our loan officers and the customers that look to us to educate and inform along their pathway to homeownership.
Every time a lender pulls your credit, the report includes a list of 'reason codes' - short explanations of what factors are holding your score back. These codes are required by law, so the bureaus generate them automatically. The problem is they are ranked by relative impact, not absolute impact.
Programs work by preventing lenders' retail teams from contacting borrowers who are already in a broker's active pipeline, automatically routing these customers back to their original advisers. They also monitor common refinance intent signals such as payoff requests and add the brokerage firm's contact information to borrowers' statements.
Ginsburg stated that treating builder business as a core pillar rather than a side channel reflects a broader industry shift. He believes a healthy balance of builders should be around 15% to 20% of the overall retail book of business.
Lenders use debt-to-income ratio to determine how much a potential borrower can afford to pay on a mortgage. This ratio includes most sources of debt and income, but it doesn't include everyday expenses like utilities or groceries. Generally, having a higher debt-to-income ratio makes it harder to secure financing to buy a house.
I don't want the closers and processors to have to get into the weeds with this. I don't want there to be any negative shadowing of our title offices, because we're having to ask for this. It's really not a title role, as far as the title insurance product that we provide. It definitely has been tasked to us, but it's not something that I want to be viewed as, 'Title requires this.' This is a governmental requirement.
Across most states, it takes 18 to 36 months to raise an average FICO score to the 760 prime threshold, assuming an improvement of about 20 points per year. Mississippi and Louisiana require the longest timelines, with borrowers needing 4 years and 3.5 years of consistent progress, respectively. At the opposite end, Minnesota offers the fastest path, with an average timeline of just 0.9 years, due to a high statewide average score of 742.
the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show student loan and auto loan balances at record highs, while credit card balances have climbed to about $1.2 trillion. Delinquencies, particularly on credit cards, are also rising, with 90-day-plus late-payment rates for credit cards more than 12% higher than in prior years. Consumers are driving a lot of growth, but there are some signs of weakness for certain parts of the economy, Kan said, adding that these pressures could spill over into housing and mortgage performance.
Investment and multifamily loans remained the highest-risk categories, according to the data. An estimated one in 43 investment property applications and one in 27 multifamily applications showed signs of fraud risk during the quarter, well above the broader industry average. The percentage ofrefinancesin the Cotality data set has increased year-over-year by19%, yetthe fraud index is up 1.5% over that time.
"Today, an increasing number of consumers include crypto in their investment portfolios, while major financial institutions are deepening their involvement in crypto assets, supported by key regulatory developments," Newrez President Baron Silverstein said in the announcement, adding that now is the "right time" to weave crypto into the mortgage lending business.
Introductory period: The initial fixed-rate phase before adjustments begin. Adjustment period: How frequently the rate can change after the intro period ends. Index: The benchmark interest rate used to calculate future rate changes. Margin: The lender's fixed markup added to the index. Initial cap: Limits how much the rate can increase at the first adjustment. Periodic cap: Limits how much the rate can change at each adjustment. Lifetime cap: The maximum interest rate allowed over the entire loan term.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is deeply entrenched in the U.S. system. It benefits from decades of investor demand, a robust securitization framework and established insurance support. Once loan terms extend beyond 30 years, those structural advantages begin to erode. There is also a cost that often gets overlooked. A 50-year mortgage dramatically increases the total interest paid over the life of the loan. While monthly payments may appear more manageable, borrowers can end up paying nearly double the interest compared to a traditional 30-year mortgage.
Original, or first-participation, HMBS production totaled $382 million in January, $90 million more than December's $292 million and $49 million above November's $333 million, but $24 million below January 2025. Tail issuance totaled $179 million, down from $189 million in December. The 72 pools included 23 original pools, 46 tail pools, and three mixed pools. January also saw 21 pools with aggregate sizes under $1 million, totaling $12.1 million in unpaid principal balance (UPB), enabled by a Ginnie Mae rule allowing small pools.
Realtor Todd Luong of REMAX DFW Associates in Frisco said his recent experience reflects meaningful improvement for buyers, even if affordability remains strained. Here in the Dallas real estate market that I serve, affordability remains a challenge, he says. However, there is a significant amount of data showing that buyer conditions have improved over the past year and that buyers are gaining affordability ground. This should eventually increase housing demand to some degree as we head into the busy spring buying season.
APOR is baked into not only Dodd-Frank as a safe harbor against litigation which many lenders want to comply with and use for their business and pricing and risk but also there are a litany of 40 other statutes that are tied to APOR as it's described in Dodd Frank, over 27 states. Lenders frequently move ahead of formal rulemaking, Dunn added. You don't have to wait for the regulation to comply either, she said.
Sales of new single-family houses in October 2025 were at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 737,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 0.1 percent (14.2 percent)* below the September 2025 rate of 738,000, and is 18.7 percent (21.7 percent)* above the October 2024 rate of 621,000. There were some negative revisions to the past three months, but the trend still stayed positive.