The average mortgage rate for a 30-year fixed loan fell four basis points last week to 2.73%, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. This is the second week mortgage rates have ticked downwards since Jan. 14’s sudden jump, but still more closely resembles the rates seen around Thanksgiving. The 15-year fixed mortgage rate also […]
Summary List Placement The US economy grew less than anticipated in the last three months of 2020 as the moderating pace of recovery padded against the coronavirus’s dire resurgence. US gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 4% in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Barring last quarter’s record leap, the […]
The Federal Open Market Committee left future economic policies virtually unchanged at its Wednesday meeting, indicating that short-term mortgage rates will stay low for years to come. “The pace of the recovery in economic activity and employment has moderated in recent months, with weakness concentrated in the sectors most adversely affected by the pandemic,” the […]
The housing industry is keeping a close eye on the Biden administration’s proposal of a first-time homebuyer tax credit of $15,000. If passed, the funds — which would help cover a down payment — could be accessed immediately by the buyer at the closing table. Biden’s tax credit — along with Biden’s other economic goals […]
Summary List Placement A top economic advisor to President Joe Biden pushed back Wednesday on the idea of limiting stimulus check eligibility. During a Bloomberg conference, White House economist Jared Bernstein argued the federal payments are “better targeted than I think most people realize,” and added “it’s not just people at the bottom who need […]
Summary List Placement Secretary of Energy nominee Jennifer Granholm expressed her intent to create new jobs through President Joe Biden’s climate plan during her confirmation hearing on Wednesday, bolstering economic growth while fighting the climate crisis. Biden signed a series of executive orders on Wednesday to “confront the existential threat of climate change,” with one […]
Summary List Placement Former President Donald Trump significantly reduced spending on enrollment efforts in the Affordable Care Act, leaving President Joe Biden with around $1 billion in unused funds to spend on healthcare, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In a new report released on Monday, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that over fiscal years […]
LoanDepot, one of America’s largest mortgage lenders, released pricing of its hotly anticipated independent public offering (IPO) on Wednesday. The multichannel lender said it would be selling 9.41 million shares of common stock; funds held by its private equity backer Parthenon Capital Partners would sell 5.59 million shares in the upcoming IPO. The offering price […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Wednesday that addresses the climate crisis, and both climate groups and corporate America have expressed support for big action on the climate and the job creation that would come with it. Climate change is one of the four crises the president said is […]
Influential mortgage broker advocacy group Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME) has promoted Katie Sweeney to CEO. Sweeney was previously AIME’s executive vice president of strategy, and her duties included creating partnerships with top wholesale mortgage lenders and industry vendors. “I’m excited to rally for the independent originator by leading AIME’s support of brokers to […]
Summary List Placement Nearly 32 million Americans would earn more under President Joe Biden’s proposals to more than double the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, according to calculations by thinktank Economic Policy Institute (EPI). This is around 21% of the US’s total workforce. Women, minorities, and frontline workers would benefit the most, it […]
Summary List Placement Only about one in 10 companies expect all their employees to go back to the office once the pandemic has subsided, according to a new report by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE). NABE’s January 2021 Business Conditions Survey report revealed that 11% of 97 NABE panelists expect all of their […]
For the second week in a row, mortgage applications decreased – this time, down 4.1% for the week ending Jan. 22, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. The 30-year-fixed rate rose to 2.95%, its highest level since November 2020, according to Joel Kan, MBA associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting. All […]
PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust announced that company founder and Non-Executive Chairman Stanford Kurland died at age 68 due to complications from COVID-19. Kurland had also been battling brain cancer. The company and industry leaders alike mourned his passing, calling him an “esteemed industry leader, visionary and friend.” “I am deeply saddened to share the news […]
Summary List Placement “This is not a radical idea,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on Tuesday. “This is what the American people want.” He was referring, of course, to a $15 federal minimum wage. And if he has his way as the incoming chair of the Senate Budget Committee, it will be a reality, whatever […]
Summary List Placement Low mortgage rates have contributed to an active housing market over the last several months, with markets across the country recording skyrocketing home prices. Freddie Mac, the popular loan company that surveys weekly mortgage data, has reported low 30-year fixed rates since the onset of the pandemic. In July, for the first […]
Summary List Placement Democrats introduced the Raise the Wage Act of 2021 on Tuesday, which would gradually increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour over the course of five years. The federal minimum wage has not been raised for over a decade, and President Joe Biden proposed to raise it in his $2 […]
Early COVID housing policy helped servicers care for homeowners in these first nine months of the pandemic with fast forbearances and smart deferrals. Now let’s preview how this will play out for servicers, homeowners and the housing economy in 2021. We’ll begin with the top three ways homeowners are exiting forbearance so far. Top three […]
Summary List Placement House Budget Chairman John Yarmuth said on Monday that raising the federal minimum wage within President Joe Biden’s stimulus proposal by using budget reconciliation is unlikely to pass through the Senate. Biden’s $2 trillion relief package is currently under negotiation in Congress. Given its partisan nature, Democrats have started to eye reconciliation […]
Summary List Placement A new report from Oxfam found that the world’s billionaires didn’t just recoup losses from the coronavirus: Their collective wealth increase could pay for the entire world’s vaccinations and prevent anyone from falling into poverty. “The increase in the wealth of the 10 richest billionaires since the crisis began is more than […]
Summary List Placement American billionaires saw their collective net worth grow by $1.1 trillion over the past 10 months, according to a new report from the the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF). In a press release, IPS and ATF said those gains could “pay for all the relief for […]
Summary List Placement The UK unemployment rate hit its highest level in 5 years in the three months to November, official figures showed on Tuesday, although the government’s wage-subsidy scheme kept joblessness lower than in other countries. Unemployment rose to 5% over the period, the Office for National Statistics said, up from 3.8% a year […]
Real estate services and technology firm SitusAMC on Monday announced its acquisition of mortgage and title outsourcer Assimilate Solutions – the second acquisition by the New York-based firm in January, and its fourth overall in less than a year. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. In a statement, SitusAMC said its latest acquisition will help to […]
The U.S. forbearance rate held relatively steady last week, rising one basis point to 5.38% of servicers’ portfolio volume, according to a survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association released on Monday. The virtually unchanged rate of forbearance volume can be attributed to a stalemate between steady declines in almost every investor class and a whopping 26 basis point jump in […]
Summary List Placement A second impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump is looming — and it jeopardizes much of President Biden’s early legislative agenda, which includes the quick passage of a multi-trillion-dollar rescue package. The House is expected to transmit the article of impeachment to the Senate on Monday evening, a step that triggers […]
Summary List Placement With government benefits from the first stimulus package expiring, 8.1 million Americans entered poverty in recent months, according to a study put out by University of Chicago and University of Notre Dame economists. Early in the pandemic, the federal government put together a stimulus package that included one-time direct payments to American […]
Zillow’s 2021 housing forecast echoes the projections of other industry experts of a rapid acceleration of home value appreciation, with numbers anticipated to be even higher than in 2020. According to Zillow’s Home Value Index, the company expects seasonally adjusted home values to increase by 3.7% from December 2020 to March 2021, and by 10.5% […]
Summary List Placement Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said on Sunday that Democrats will use budget reconciliation to pass President Joe Biden’s stimulus package with a simple majority in Congress. In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Sanders said that Democrats will use reconciliation to pass Biden’s $2 trillion stimulus package to quickly provide aid […]
Summary List Placement Workers around the world cumulatively lost $3.7 trillion in earnings during the coronavirus pandemic — an 8.3% decline — according to a new report from the International Labour Organization (ILO). American workers saw the largest losses in earnings, a 10.3% decline. Globally, 8.8% of working hours were lost, and 114 million people […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Monday that will reform the Buy American rule by strengthening the federal government’s procurement of American-manufactured goods. During his campaign, Biden pledged to invest $400 billion in new spending over the course of his presidency, which would be geared toward buying American-made goods […]
Summary List Placement The federal minimum wage hasn’t changed since the last time President Joe Biden held office. In 2009, the federal minimum wage was raised to $7.25 — where it remains today. Some individual states have raised their own minimums since then. But, as of 2019, 392,000 workers earned the federal minimum wage, and […]
Summary List Placement It took nine months for the top 1,000 billionaires in the world to bounce back from financial losses triggered by the pandemic — but billions of people will remain in poverty for more than a decade, according to a new Oxfam survey released on Monday. The study, called “The Inequality Virus,” said […]
Summary List Placement If you expected there to be some kind of “reset” between Beijing and Washington as the Biden administration took over, you are about to be disappointed. America’s China policy under President Joe Biden is likely to be just as assertive as it was under President Donald Trump, but much more effective. In […]
Summary List Placement A college-educated couple, mortgaged house with a white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a dog: It’s the American Dream, and millennials are “killing” it. So cried the press in the past decade, accusing millennials of killing so many industries that The New York Times (and Business Insider) dubbed it a cliche, while […]
Summary List Placement Transportation Secretary nominee Pete Buttigieg told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing on Thursday that he will prioritize climate change as part of the Department of Transportation’s support for President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plans. Biden has proposed a $2 trillion investment in infrastructure, according to his website, with the intent to create “the […]
Nearly three months after CoreLogic confirmed it was exploring multiple acquisition offers following the rejection of a hostile takeover bid, the data giant is now evaluating the final two bidders. Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg reported that CoStar Group and a private equity group led by Warburg Pincus are currently competing for the data provider, though […]
Summary List Placement Millions of us who remember President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January of 2009 can recall the deep feeling of anxiety that hummed in the background of the event. Our nation was facing an unprecedented economic collapse, and there was a genuine sense that the global economy could be completely wiped out. I […]
The following is an excerpt from an interview originally published by FinLedger with Rohan Amin, Chief Information Officer of Chase’s Consumer & Community Banking unit. The complete interview is available here. When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, banks were among the many institutions moving quickly to adapt to all the changes that came with […]
Summary List Placement A key gauge of US business activity swung higher this month as strong demand lifted manufacturers and service businesses alike. IHS Markit’s composite output index climbed to 58 from 55.3 in an early January reading, hitting its highest level in two months. The firm’s index of service-industry business activity improved to 57.5 […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden is planning another wave of executive actions, set to address the financial struggles facing millions of Americans as the pandemic continues. “The American people cannot afford to wait,” Brian Deese, the White House National Economic Council Director told reporters on a Thursday evening call. “So many are hanging by […]
After ringing the bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday morning, Mat Ishbia’s United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) is a publicly traded company. UWM, the second-largest mortgage originator in America, debuted trading at $11.95. By 10:45 a.m. EST, it was trading at $11.65. UWM’s entrance to the public markets caps a wild six months […]
Summary List Placement Credit- and debit-card spending accelerated through the first two weeks of January as stimulus passed by President Donald Trump bolstered households’ balance sheets. Card spending climbed 6% from the year-ago period over the week that ended January 16, Bank of America said in a Thursday note, citing aggregated card data. The climb […]
The final delinquency tally for December is in, with data revealing that by year’s end, 1.54 million more delinquent and 1.7 million more seriously delinquent mortgages were reported than at the start of 2020, according to a report from Black Knight. With nearly 2 million extra overdue loans in the pipe, that’s approximately 3.4 million […]
Summary List Placement Various Federal Reserve lending facilities left to expire under former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are likely to stay closed in the immediate future. Janet Yellen, President Joe Biden’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, indicated she won’t work to reopen the closed 13(3) programs unless Congress allows for such action, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden inherited an ailing labor market, with 900,000 people filing unemployment claims the week before he took office. But the new president has plans to address the issue and provide relief for jobless Americans. Before COVID-19 hit, unemployment claims were touching highs of around 695,000, but have consistently soared above […]