SF real estate
fromwww.housingwire.com
2 days agoFinance of America launches new reverse mortgage line of credit
HomeSafe Second Line of Credit offers a nonrevolving reverse mortgage option for accessing home equity without new monthly payments.
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.
With roughly nine million student borrowers in default, the Treasury Department will "assume operational responsibility for collecting" on those loans, the Education Department announced Thursday. The move is ED's latest effort to render itself obsolete as part of the Trump administration's plan to eliminate the department. This is the 10th interagency agreement it has signed to share with or spin off functions to other federal agencies.
Eric Ellman, president of the National Consumer Reporting Association (NCRA) said we learned from the 2008 housing crisis that more data is better than less data, especially when the financial stakes are so high. He added, The cost of being right for spending an extra $100 is so much stronger a case to make than the downside risk for a consumer who might lose thousands over the lifetime of a loan.
Refinance applications increased for the fourth straight week to the strongest pace since 2022, with conventional refinances up 20%. The increase in the average loan size for refinances indicates that more borrowers with larger loan sizes are seeking to lower their monthly payments.
"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.
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.
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.
For the past several years, the U.S. housing market has faced an unusual constraint: not a lack of buyers, but a lack of sellers willing or able to move. Millions of homeowners remain rate-locked, holding mortgages originated in 20202022 at interest rates between 2% and 4% (Federal Housing Finance Agency; Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey). While home values have risen, the financial penalty of selling and repurchasing at today's 6%7% rates has discouraged mobility, suppressing inventory and transaction volume nationwide (National Association of Realtors; HousingWire).
As the country reemerged from the coronavirus pandemic lockdown in 2021- when the COVID vaccine finally arrived, TikTok reached 1 billion downloads and Adele finally released new music - the housing market also saw its own interesting development. That year, banks offered some of the lowest interest rates seen in over a decade for a type of housing loan known as an adjustable-rate mortgage.
Mortgage delinquencies increased across all three major loan types Conventional, FHA, and VA in the last three months of the year, Marina Walsh, MBA's vice president of industry analysis, said in a statement. The most pronounced uptick was with FHA loans, which reached a delinquency rate of 11.52%, the highest level since the second quarter of 2021. While earlier-stage FHA delinquencies remained relatively flat compared to the previous quarter, later-stage, 90+ day delinquencies increased by 76 basis points.