Summary List Placement The wage hikes seen in recent weeks offer an encouraging hint of what the new US economy can look like, President Joe Biden said Thursday. Large-scale employers have been raising their minimum wages as they look to attract workers through reopening. Companies such as McDonald’s, Amazon, and Under Armour have rolled out […]
Summary List Placement The White House on Thursday cautioned Senate Republicans against redirecting stimulus money to fund infrastructure, saying that step could come at the expense of rural hospitals, restaurants, and small businesses that have been financially devastated by the pandemic. The statement from White House press secretary Jen Psaki comes after a group of […]
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) announced two additions to its executive team on Thursday. The company named Alden Knowlton associate vice president of legislative affairs and Rachel Kelley associate vice president of political affairs, the MBA said in a release. Knowlton, who joined MBA in 2016 and previously held the title of associate vice president […]
Summary List Placement A group of Republican senators unveiled their $928 billion counterproposal to President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, increasing the price tag from their first $568 billion counteroffer. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was not impressed with this new plan. “I don’t really think this is a serious counteroffer,” Warren told MSNBC following the release […]
Summary List Placement Add pay growth to the list of inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic. CEO pay skyrocketed 15.9% through the pandemic as the rallying stock market boosted compensation packages, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute said in a Thursday blog post. That marks an acceleration from the 14% jump seen in 2019 despite COVID-19 roiling […]
Summary List Placement On Thursday, Republican senators introduced their second counter-offer to President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, proposing funding the plan by using unspent stimulus money. State treasurers say this is a bad idea. In a letter sent to Congress on Thursday — organized by Invest in America Action — 14 state treasurers urged lawmakers to […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden’s first budget request will officially be unveiled on Friday, and the New York Times found that it will propose $6 trillion to help fund his major infrastructure spending plans. On Thursday, the Times reported that the $6 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2022 will be accompanied by deficits […]
Mortgage rates fluctuated again last week, down 5 basis points to 2.95% after managing to pop back up to 3% the week prior, according to Thursday data from Freddie Mac‘s PMMS. Mortgage rates have been hovering around 3% for over a month now, as macro economic factors left the bond market hesitant over the global […]
Summary List Placement Senate Republicans on Thursday made a $928 billion infrastructure counteroffer to the White House in a proposal that only modestly increases new federal spending compared to what the Biden administration is seeking to overhaul the economy. GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia has spearheaded the working group through the month. […]
Summary List Placement Filings for unemployment insurance declined last week as businesses slowed layoffs amid reopening. New jobless claims totaled an unadjusted 406,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. That comes in below the median estimate of 425,000 from economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The reading marks a fourth straight decline and places claims at their […]
Summary List Placement By now you’ve probably heard about the big mystery in the US economy: Restaurants can’t find enough people to hire, even though millions of Americans remain out of work. Republicans blame the government for extending unemployment benefits and eroding the country’s “work ethic.” Democrats point to school and daycare closures that are […]
Summary List Placement Around a quarter of Americans say they work mostly in the gig economy, and 62% of those workers say that they’d rather not, according to a survey published Wednesday by McKinsey and Ipsos. “Gig workers would overwhelmingly prefer permanent employment,” the survey found. That preference is even stronger among immigrants and workers […]
Summary List Placement The move to cut federal unemployment benefits in red states is “tied to politics, not economics,” according to a Tuesday note by the economic research team at JPMorgan. The note refers to two dozen GOP-run states deciding to end their federal unemployment benefits early, leaving 4 million workers set to lose an extra […]
Summary List Placement The good news: The US labor market is well on its way to a full recovery. The bad news: It’s going to take a while to get there. After improving steadily through 2021, the disappointing April jobs report signaled the labor market’s rebound wouldn’t be as smooth as most hoped. With labor […]
Fannie Mae now has a clear successor to take the reins of its single-family business following the departure of Andrew Bon Salle in December. The government sponsored entity has named Malloy Evans, the company’s current chief credit officer for single family, to head the division, it said in a statement Wednesday. The appointment of Evans […]
The average time to close on a mortgage has decreased for a fourth consecutive month to 51 days, according to a new study from ICE Mortgage Technology. The study, ICE’s Origination Insight Report, also found April to be the second consecutive month of slowdown in share of refinances among total originations, dropping to 56% from […]
Summary List Placement As a growing number of Democrats are pushing for recurring stimulus checks beyond the three that Americans have already received, the Boston Herald found 1.2 million people still haven’t spent their first $1,200 check, from all the way back in March 2020. Under the CARES Act passed that month, most Americans received […]
If you have any mortgage servicing rights you’re looking to offload, you may want to give Ocwen Financial a call. A few weeks after striking a deal to buy $14 billion of mortgage servicing rights from Texas Capital Bank, a subsidiary of Ocwen has agreed to buy $48.3 billion of conventional MSR from AmeriHome Mortgage. Ocwen’s subsidiary PHH […]
Summary List Placement Americans are going on a spending spree. In a post-stimulus, increasingly vaccinated world, they’re ready to live like it’s 2019 again. They’re buying dresses, jeans, and crop tops and booking beauty services like mani-pedis and haircuts for their hot vaxx summer. They’re taking public transit, dining at bars and restaurants, and taking flight. […]
Summary List Placement The Biden administration is tackling the flaws in the federal student-debt forgiveness programs, but it could take a while to see results. On Monday, the Education Department announced it is beginning the process of issuing new higher education regulations, mainly concerning student debt-forgiveness programs. The first step of the process will be […]
Summary List Placement Cryptocurrencies are for speculators, criminals and cosplayers. Aside from that, they’re useless, and I’m tired of everyone trying to pretend otherwise. I have waited for years for someone to explain to me a decent use case for cryptocurrencies. But throughout the recent fervor over crypto with its huge price boom and subsequent […]
After two straight weeks of increases, mortgage applications dropped 4.2% for the week ending May 21, 2021, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association‘s weekly mortgage applications survey. “Demand is robust throughout the country, but homebuyers continue to be held back by the lack of homes for sale and rapidly increasing home prices,” said Joel Kan, […]
Summary List Placement A McDonald’s restaurant in Illinois that is desperate to attract staff is giving away iPhones to new recruits if they stay for six months. A viral photo shared by Twitter user @brogawd_ shows a sign placed in the window of a restaurant reading: “Now hiring. Free iPhone.” LMFAO G MCDONALDS IS STARVING […]
Summary List Placement In his latest attempt to get Republicans on board with his infrastructure plan, President Joe Biden offered them a $1.7 trillion plan last week, down from his initial $2.25 trillion proposal. GOP lawmakers plan on countering that with a $1 trillion plan on Thursday. A group of GOP senators, led by Shelley […]
Summary List Placement The pandemic has done a lot of strange things to the global economy over the last 14 months, from creating a massive shortage of semiconductor chips to a ballooning supply of hand sanitizer. The US housing market has gone haywire too, as urbanites took advantage of remote work to leave expensive cities […]
New legislation would extend a benefit similar to Veterans Affairs loans to first responders and teachers who buy homes. U.S. Representatives John Rutherford (R-Fla.), Al Lawson (D-Fla.), John Katko (R-N.Y.), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) introduced the bill, dubbed the Homes for Every Local Protector Educator and Responder Act, on May 13. The bill would […]
Summary List Placement Stimulus checks have been a cornerstone of pandemic relief, helping offset financial strains brought on by COVID-19. But studies have shown that those checks only last Americans a few months, and many Democratic lawmakers want to implement recurring direct payments for a sustainable economic recovery. Under the CARES Act signed into law […]
Summary List Placement After surging through the pandemic on a wave of historic demand, sales of new single-family homes are giving way before a nationwide supply shortfall. New home sales in the US slid 5.9% in April to an annual rate of 863,000 units, the Census Bureau said. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected sales to […]
Summary List Placement While graduating from college is a significant achievement, many people — 45 million people, that is — are held back by student debt — except for this spring’s Contra Costa Community College graduates. The Contra Costa College Foundation announced on Monday that as a surprise graduation gift for May graduates, it had […]
Summary List Placement About 900 people a day are moving to Florida, the state’s CFO, Jimmy Patronis, told Fox Business on Monday, attributing it mainly to higher taxes in states such as New York and New Jersey. Migration to Florida had steadily risen over the past decade before booming during the coronavirus pandemic as remote […]
The ability to look past the now and develop strategies that poise an organization for future success is key to any leadership position in almost any business. It’s true for the mortgage industry and especially the long-term strategies we’ve developed to react to the current low-rate environment brought on by a global pandemic. One of […]
Summary List Placement Audit rates for the wealthiest Americans are nearly 80% lower than they were a decade ago, driving the tax gap to an estimated $1 trillion annually. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts wants to close that gap and hold the wealthy accountable by strengthening the budget of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). On […]
The total number of loans in forbearance managed to fall three basis points last week to 4.22% of servicers’ portfolio volume, according to a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. A drop-off in the number of exits did mark a slower decline than in recent weeks, however, Monday’s data still marks three consecutive months of […]
It’s the moment everyone fears: in the frenzy to close a house sale, commitment to fraud preventions falters. Busy professionals involved in the sale override their own cautions about fending off wire fraud by reverting to tried-and-true email addresses to convey the most sensitive financial information. Trying to keep with the drive to the finish […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden’s talks on infrastructure with Republicans are threatening to stall out in their third week, with negotiators sharply disagreeing on the level of spending required and even the basic definition of the term. The Biden administration made another offer on Friday, paring down its original proposal to $1.7 trillion from […]
Summary List Placement Bipartisanship remains the focus of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure discussions, as he dedicates his time and efforts to negotiating the scope and size of his $4 trillion infrastructure proposal with Republicans. But a new poll found that voters don’t really care all that much about getting Republicans on board. A poll released […]
Summary List Placement A uniform corporate tax that spans different countries is coming closer to reality, according to a new report from the Financial Times. Per the report, the Group of 7 countries could reach their own agreement by as soon as Friday. While the G7 does not have formal power over the final agreement, […]
Stavvy, a Boston-based fintech, announced Monday that it landed a $40 million Series A funding round led by Morningside Technology Ventures. The company says the round is the largest Series A for a New England fintech and it plans to use the capital to double or even triple its staff by the first quarter of […]
Summary List Placement China is cracking down on cryptocurrencies because it’s worried crypto could threaten national security and economic and financial stability, top economist Mohamed El-Erian said in a Sunday Bloomberg op-ed. Several countries, including China and the UK, are considering issuing central bank digital currencies, showing that they’re leaning towards the adoption of centralized […]
Summary List Placement The pandemic caused a surge in home-improvement projects at the worst possible time and many companies are still struggling to keep up with backlogs of projects. Over 44% of home improvement plans in the US have been delayed due to supply shortages and skyrocketing material costs, according to data from market research […]
Summary List Placement On April 29, new data showed that a key measure of inflation monitored by the Fed — core PCE (personal consumption expenditures) — rose to 3.5% from 1.7% in the first quarter, marking its second-fastest pace of growth since 2011. Then, on May 12, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released new Consumer […]
Summary List Placement If I asked you to name the job title of a worker who would be required to sign a noncompete agreement, you’d probably think of high-paying jobs — designers of new Apple products, for instance, or CEOs with access to corporate secrets. Noncompetes were designed for just that purpose: to protect a […]
Summary List Placement For almost a year, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been calling on the IRS to make it easier for domestic violence survivors to collect stimulus checks and tax returns. Experts say almost all domestic violence survivors experience some form of financial or economic abuse, and lawmakers and IRS representatives continue to hold […]
Summary List Placement COVID-19 and a year of staying at home may have saved some brick-and-mortar stores from the retail apocalypse, or at least slowed its advances. Some of the country’s biggest retailers, including Walmart, Macy’s, Target, and Home Depot, said sales are strong and shoppers are returning to stores as pandemic restrictions ease and […]
As the mortgage market swings back to purchase, lenders are looking at ways to welcome new customers, clients and colleagues as they expand their reach. That’s why we’ve invited Movement Mortgage‘s vice president of marketing Jake Fehling to speak about marketing to reach a diverse audience at engage.marketing on June 17. Prior to his career in the financial services […]