Summary List Placement Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer may have found a way to use reconciliation more than expected. Reconciliation is a Senate process that is governed by strict rules and is typically used once per fiscal year. Democrats used it to pass the $1.9 trillion stimulus and were preparing to use it again to […]
Summary List Placement After canceling student debt for about 72,000 defrauded borrowers two weeks ago, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced relief measures for borrowers with total and permanent disabilities on Monday. Under the previous rule established under former President Barack Obama, anyone determined as permanently disabled by a physician, the Social Security Administration, or the […]
Summary List Placement The swelling national debt isn’t the Biden administration’s top priority, and it may not be economists’ either. The White House’s embrace of big spending has touched off a rampant debate among economists, but in a sign that the debt is yesterday’s economic news, inflation is the major point of contention. But how […]
The U.S. forbearance rate is officially below 5% for the first time in a year. Servicers’ forbearance portfolio volume fell nine basis points last week to 4.96%, according to a survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Since October, the percentage of portfolio loans in forbearance hovered between 5% and 6%, the longest a percentage range had […]
Whether we personally were infected by COVID-19 or not in the past year, we all suffered the pains of a sick economy as members of the American family. Now that the economy is on the verge of reopening, we can anticipate the release of pent-up demand for labor along with increased spending in specific sectors […]
Summary List Placement Housing prices keep going up, and real-estate firms are starting to worry about it. In a Friday report, Redfin said the median home-sale price for the four weeks ending March 21 was $331,590 — a record high, and a 16% year-over-year increase. It’s the latest in a series of record highs. National […]
Summary List Placement Two days before it was set to expire, on Monday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended the ban on evictions through June 30 to help struggling renters. On his first day in office, President Joe Biden extended the eviction moratorium through the end of March as part of his pandemic […]
Summary List Placement The Suez Canal blockage by the giant container ship Ever Given has caused shipping backlogs that could take months to unravel, Maersk, the world’s biggest shipping company, said Monday. “Even when the canal gets reopened, the ripple effects on global capacity and equipment are significant and the blockage has already triggered a […]
Summary List Placement A massive container ship stuck in the Suez Canal has been refloated, Bloomberg News reported, citing shipping services provider Inchcape. The Ever Given had been stuck sideways across Egypt’s canal since Tuesday, clogging a vital artery for the global economy and forcing multiple ships to turn around and reroute through Africa. It’s unclear how […]
Summary List Placement The blockage of the Suez Canal by a massive container ship called the Ever Given has become a worldwide shipping crisis. But — so far — it pales in comparison to other events that brought the canal to a halt in the past. Since Tuesday, the Panamanian-flagged Ever Given has been lodged […]
Summary List Placement Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Attorney General Ashley Moody said they would consider filing a lawsuit against the federal government over its ongoing restriction on the cruise industry. During a roundtable discussion with cruise industry executives on Friday, Moody said the state was weighing its legal options against the Biden Administration […]
Summary List Placement It wasn’t until the pandemic that I started making my bed every day. It seemed like a counterintuitive act before 2020. My bed was trapped by three walls in the tiny bedroom of my rented apartment, which meant I had to climb onto it to smooth out the sheets and duvet, creating […]
Summary List Placement Like a lot of white males, I read Ayn Rand’s bestselling novel “Atlas Shrugged” when I was 18. And like a lot of white males, “Atlas Shrugged” turned me into a huge jerk for a couple of months. “Atlas Shrugged,” which was published in 1959 and came in second only after The […]
Summary List Placement The end of a lonely year is drawing near. Bank accounts are freshly padded with $1,400 stimulus checks, any adult should be able to get a vaccine around May, and everyone is readying for a “hot vax summer.” Shut-in Americans are gearing up to spend and socialize after a year in which […]
Wells Fargo agreed to pay $95.7 million to more than 5,300 home mortgage consultants to resolve a pair of class-action legal claims that allege wage-and-hour violations in California, according to the settlement agreement in federal court. The deal will provide $62.8 million to the class members, with the remainder going to plaintiffs attorneys. The lawsuit, which […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden is set to unveil a massive $3 trillion infrastructure bill next week and many lawmakers have floated various ideas on how to fund it. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has an idea: a mileage tax. In a CNBC interview on Friday, Buttigieg discussed Biden’s upcoming proposal and said the […]
Summary List Placement Many people bought new homes during the pandemic, spurred on by low mortgage rates, the ability to work from home, and of course, needing your own space amid a raging global pandemic. But the laws of supply and demand weren’t asleep at the same time. Lumber got really, really expensive, adding to […]
Summary List Placement How would you like to be paid to have a mortgage? Maybe you should buy a house in Portugal. Some mortgage holders actually have negative mortgage rates — meaning their banks pay them interest. The Wall Street Journal’s Patricia Kowsmann reported on the phenomenon, which was rare pre-pandemic. Rates were originally allowed […]
Summary List Placement A popular measure of consumer sentiment in the US rose to its highest level in a year as stimulus checks and faster vaccine rollouts juiced optimism for a full economic recovery. The University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment climbed to 84.9 from 76.8 this month, according to data published Friday morning. […]
Summary List Placement The recently enacted $1.9 trillion stimulus package doles out billions to Americans. And there’s one notable group who particularly stands to benefit from cash infusions: parents. The American Rescue Plan expands the child tax credit for 2021, widening how many people with children would be eligible for the credit. The credit amount […]
A 40-plus basis point rise in mortgage rates over the past month resulted in approximately 7 million high-quality refi candidates who are no longer able to lock “forever rates,” according to a recent report from Black Knight. On Feb.11, the mortgage data and analytics provider estimated there were 18.1 million borrowers who met broad-based underwriting […]
Private mortgage insurance helped over 2 million low downpayment borrowers secure mortgage financing in 2020, a 53% increase from 2019, according to data from the government sponsored entities. The private mortgage insurance industry also supported $600 billion in mortgage originations. The result was approximately $1.3 trillion in outstanding mortgages with active private mortgage insurance coverage […]
Summary List Placement Following a 24-hour ultimatum from Democratic lawmakers, the Social Security Administration provided information to the Internal Revenue Service on Thursday that will help more Americans get stimulus payments. Nearly 30 million Social Security and Supplemental Security income beneficiaries were kept waiting on stimulus payments because, House Democrats said, the SSA hadn’t provided […]
Summary List Placement Democrats tried and failed to raise the federal minimum wage as they muscled the $1.9 trillion stimulus law through Congress. But two left-leaning economists say they’ve figured out a way it could pass the Senate with just 51 votes, just as the stimulus did. Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, economists from the […]
Summary List Placement Ahead of an expiration date six days away, the Senate passed a bill on Thursday to extend the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) through May 31, allowing small businesses to continue receiving emergency aid. Last week, the House passed the PPP Extension Act, which would extend the small-business-lending program through the end of […]
Summary List Placement The unevenness of the coronavirus’ economic impact on minorities and low-income workers is “the signature characteristic” of the pandemic and its fallout, Raphael Bostic, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said on Thursday. While the economy has made strides toward a full recovery in recent months, the upswing hasn’t been […]
As the refi boom fades, gain-on-sale margins at loanDepot are declining, the company disclosed in a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week. The Tuesday filing shows that loanDepot, the nation’s second-largest retail lender, originated $25.1 billion worth of residential loans in January and February, compared to the $37.4 billion the company […]
Summary List Placement Sen. Bernie Sanders is once again pushing for wealthier Americans to pay higher taxes, and he wants to reform two parts of the tax code to do it. This time, he’s got his eyes set on the estate tax and corporate tax. Currently, the estate tax, which taxes property transferred after death, […]
Summary List Placement In an interview with The New York Times’ Ezra Klein, Sen. Bernie Sanders talked about the size and ramifications of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan — and some of his optimism going forward about the economy and President Joe Biden’s vision for it. When asked why the 50 Democrats in the […]
Summary List Placement Central banks need to issue digital currencies as cash will become outdated, a UBS chief economist said. These digital currencies won’t operate like cryptocurrencies and will have no wild swings in value, Paul Donovan said. The supply of an officially backed coin depends on a central bank’s authority to regulate the currency’s […]
The broader economy showed signs of recovery last week, pushing the average mortgage rate for a 30-year fixed loan up eight basis points to 3.17%, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey Since January, mortgage rates have increased roughly 50 basis points from historic lows and home prices have risen, leaving would-be homebuyers with less purchasing power. Unfortunately, […]
Summary List Placement The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits declined last week to the lowest level since the unemployment crisis began one year earlier. New jobless claims totaled an unadjusted 684,000 for the week that ended Saturday, according to the Labor Department. That compares to the median estimate of 730,000 filings from economists […]
Digital mortgage and fulfillment platform Maxwell has raised $16.3 million in a Series B funding round, the company said on Thursday. The round was led by Fin VC and TTV Capital. Other investors included Rotor Capital, The Mortgage Collaborative Emerging Technology Fund, Prudence Holdings and existing investors including Anthemis Group, Route 66 Ventures, and Sovereign’s […]
The Mortgage Bankers Association on Tuesday sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mark Calabria expressing concern over several amendments to the Senior Preferred Stock Purchase Agreements announced in January, including changes to investment properties. The MBA said several of the revised PSPA amendments could cause “unnecessary disruptions […]
LoanDepot, the nation’s second-largest nonbank retail mortgage lender, struck up a joint-venture with Schell Brothers, a homebuilder based in Delaware. The venture is to be called Henlopen Mortgage, the firms said in a statement this week. Through the JV, Schell Brothers, which builds energy-efficient homes along the beaches of Delaware and in Virginia, will have access […]
Summary List Placement When it rains, it pours, and when there’s a drought, prices go up. In this case, the drought is in Brazil and it has the US running low on coffee. That means your morning cup of joe is about to get more expensive. The drought has decreased crop production just as congested […]
Summary List Placement Though he was labeled as more moderate than some of his opponents in the Democratic primary, President Joe Biden frequently mentioned on the campaign trail that he’d be the most progressive president in history. As far as economic policy goes, that claim is quickly proving true. The $1.9 trillion stimulus package championed by […]
A week after the deadline to pick sides in United Wholesale Mortgage‘s “all-in” ultimatum to mortgage brokers, Fairway Independent Mortgage is speaking out. In a conversation with HousingWire on Monday night, company executives said they’ve actually benefited from the ultimatum, which has divided the broker community into two camps. Since UWM president and CEO Mat […]
Summary List Placement Oakland, California, is about to become the latest city to distribute free money to its residents. Mayor Libby Schaaf announced Tuesday that the San Francisco Bay Area city has officially launched a basic-income pilot that will give $500 monthly payments to 600 low-income families for 18 months. Recipients can spend the stipends […]
Summary List Placement The US and China held their first Biden-era bilateral meeting and press conference last Thursday in Anchorage, Alaska, and it was different. Unlike past meetings — where each party confirmed overall respect for the other while airing specific grievances — this meeting set the stage for what has become a clash between […]
Summary List Placement The federal eviction moratorium that President Joe Biden extended on his first day in office is set to expire in seven days, but two people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post that the White House may extend the ban through at least July. This would help the Americans who have […]
Summary List Placement Add a crippling logistics nightmare to the list of factors sending gas prices higher. You could say it was ever a given. On Tuesday morning, the container ship Ever Given ran aground at the Suez Canal and formed a traffic jam in one of the world’s most critical trade routes. About 600,000 […]
Summary List Placement The systemic exclusion of Black Americans from employment, home ownership, and generational wealth is not a new story. And the wealth gap between Black and white Americans has only persisted: In the fourth quarter of 2020, white households had a total net worth that was over 20 times that of total wealth […]
Mortgage applications decreased for the third straight week – this time down 2.5%, according to the latest report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Refinance activity dropped to its slowest pace since September 2020 – down a full 5% – with declines in both conventional and government applications, according to Joel Kan, MBA’s associate vice president […]
Summary List Placement One of the most important shipping routes in the world, the Suez Canal, has been blocked by a massive container ship for a day. Ever Given, a nearly 200-foot-wide, 1,300-foot-long cargo ship sailing under a Panamanian flag, has caused a transcontinental logjam in the Egyptian waters, which directly connect Europe to Asia. […]