Summary List Placement The NFT craze continues, and it could change the art world. The acronym, which stands for “non-fungible token,” is a digital file that’s tradable by blockchain. It shot to fame and prominence in March when a visual artist called Beeple sold “Everydays: the First 5000 Days,” a digital collage of images, for […]
Summary List Placement The second part of the $4 trillion infrastructure plan President Joe Biden will unveil in the coming weeks includes funding for issues like universal pre-K and paid family and medical leave, and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal said that those issues belong in infrastructure and should be a top […]
Summary List Placement Seventy economists have signed on to a letter saying it’s time to go big on infrastructure. “A multitrillion-dollar investment in infrastructure like the one President Biden laid out last week will help pave the way for sustainable and equitable economic growth and pay for itself in the long run,” the letter, coordinated […]
Summary List Placement New York City millionaires are about to fall under the highest tax rate in the country. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state legislative leaders are coming close to agreeing on a 2022 budget proposal that would create an extra $4.3 billion a year by raising income and corporate taxes, The New York Times’ […]
Summary List Placement The student-debt problem numbers are massive: 45 million people owe $1.7 trillion. But another big number is 19, as that many states have more outstanding student debt than their annual budgets. Student Loan Justice — an organization advocating for student-debt cancellation — released a report in March on these 19 states, with […]
The share of loans in forbearance fell six basis points during the final week of March to 4.9% of servicers’ portfolio volume, according to recent data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. New forbearance requests also dropped to their lowest level since March, 2020 as forbearance volume fell across the board for every investor type. Fannie […]
Summary List Placement Gradual reopening and widespread vaccination have economists wondering how Americans will spend in a post-pandemic economy. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York see little cause for concern. Americans enjoyed a savings surge during the pandemic as government stimulus hit households and lockdown measures cut down on spending. Estimates suggest people […]
Summary List Placement After the freeze, comes the thaw. For the US economy, the pandemic era stopped the all-important service sector in its tracks. Now a spring thaw is emerging in more ways than one. The Institute for Supply Management’s index of service businesses rose to 63.7 last month from 55.3, according to a Monday […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a notice of proposed rulemaking on Monday that would amend Regulation X to provide a special pre-foreclosure review period prohibiting servicers from starting foreclosures until after December 31, 2021. Under current CFPB foreclosure rules, a borrower must be 120 days delinquent before the foreclosure process can start. The Bureau […]
Summary List Placement Housing prices have skyrocketed during the pandemic, as it seems many people bought new homes. But something else is going on, too: not enough homes are hitting the market. A report from real estate analytics corporation Black Knight puts into perspective just how dire the situation is: housing inventory is down by 40% […]
Summary List Placement The pandemic’s uneven economic fallout is now showing up in car loan payments — especially in their absence. More than 9% of subprime auto borrowers — those classified as having a higher risk of default — were over 60 days delinquent in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to TransUnion data cited by […]
Summary List Placement President Biden announced on Wednesday his proposal to invest $2 trillion over eight years to bolster the economy, create jobs, and shore up supply chains. The plan earmarks $300 billion for small businesses and manufacturing, with initiatives to bring more manufacturing stateside, update tax incentives, expand research and development, and install funding […]
Last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 916,000 jobs were created in March, and the previous month’s revisions came in positive. The rest of this content is for HW+ members. Join today with an HW+ Membership! Already a member? log in HW+ includes weekly long-form digital content, HousingWire Magazine, access to HousingStack, and […]
Prices are up sharply as housing inventory continues to plateau, leaving 40% fewer homes on the market compared to last year, according to a report prepared by Black Knight. Instead of making up for the shortfall, new listings have slumped further in 2021. Year-over-year, new listing volumes were down 16% in January and 21% in […]
Summary List Placement Guaranteed income is a robust response to so many contradictions. We see the benefits of divorcing work from worth playing out in Stockton, California. Mayor Michael Tubbs, the first Black mayor elected to office at the ripe age of 26, is running a guaranteed income pilot. He makes the case that poverty […]
Summary List Placement Since the election of President Joe Biden, inflation and its potential comeback have been hot economic topics. Pumping trillions of dollars into the economy could overheat it, critics say, while others see few signs of runaway inflation, either now or in the near future. Freak events in early 2021 like the Texas […]
Summary List Placement Most progressives — really, most Americans — agree that income inequality is a tremendous problem. For over 40 years, the vast majority of profits have gone to the wealthiest 10% of the economy, and a gigantic portion of those gains have been scooped up by the wealthiest .01 percent. The $50 trillion […]
Summary List Placement From March 18, 2020, to March 18, 2021, the world’s billionaires added $4 trillion to their wealth, according to a new report from the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). That’s a 54% increase for the world’s 2,365 billionaires, who now have $12.39 trillion. The wealthiest 20 billionaires alone added $742 billion […]
Summary List Placement America’s economic recovery has been somewhat disjointed over the last several months. When retail sales would surge, job additions would falter. Consumer sentiment would improve, but unemployment claims remained at elevated levels. And while manufacturers continued to enjoy outsize demand, restaurants and brick-and-mortar stores saw elevated COVID-19 infections eat into business. Now, […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden said Friday that his new American Jobs Plan — the first of a two-part package – could lead to the creation of 19 million new jobs. According to Bloomberg, Biden seemed to be citing a recent Moody’s Analytics report that projects 19 million jobs could be added over the next […]
Finance of America on Monday will become the latest lender to make its debut on the New York Stock Exchange. The lender, which is controlled by the Blackstone Group and operates through retail, wholesale and correspondent channels, will begin trading Monday following the completion of its merger with blank-check company Replay Acquisition Corp. It’s the […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden unveiled the first part of his $4 trillion infrastructure package on Wednesday, and almost immediately a host of Republican lawmakers criticized the bill for allocating funds to measures not specifically related to physical infrastructure, such as climate change and research initiatives. South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem was one […]
Summary List Placement A new debate is brewing over President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package: What, exactly, is infrastructure? According to the $2 trillion plan Biden unveiled this week, infrastructure encompasses everything from broadband access to childcare to care workers. Republicans say that’s a far cry from rebuilding roads and bridges. “Our nation could use a […]
Summary List Placement The economy really began to reopen in March, and restaurants led the way. The US economy added 916,000 jobs in March, trouncing economic forecasts that predicted that number would look more like 660,000 jobs. The leisure and hospitality industry not only drove nearly all of February’s jobs gains, it accounted for roughly one-third […]
Summary List Placement The first $2 trillion of President Joe Biden’s up to $4 trillion infrastructure package includes not only funding for roads and bridges, but also for climate-focused initiatives, like electric vehicles and sustainable housing. Republicans are asking, is that really infrastructure? On a Thursday afternoon press call, the Biden administration’s top climate officials […]
Summary List Placement The March jobs report released on Friday was some of the best economic news for the US in recent months, with a net gain of 916,000 jobs that well exceeded economists’ expectations. But the COVID-19 pandemic has blasted such a large hole in the US economy that even at that stunning pace, […]
Summary List Placement Hiring in the US rebounded in March as early reopenings throughout the country and massive stimulus revived economic activity. Nonfarm payrolls grew by 916,000 last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday. That came in above the median estimate from economists surveyed by Bloomberg of 660,000 new payrolls. The reading […]
Rocket Companies Chairman Dan Gilbert sold 20 million shares of common stock on Wednesday, cashing out just under $500 million, according to disclosures Rocket made to the Securities and Exchanges Commission. The Form 4 file, made public Wednesday evening, shows Gilbert sold 20.2 million shares of common stock at $24.75 a unit for $499.95 million. […]
Summary List Placement After months of either meager gains or unexpected losses, March is poised to be a turning point for the US labor market’s recovery. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish its nonfarm payrolls report for March on Friday at 8:30 am ET, providing the most detailed look at how hiring fared throughout […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is warning servicers that it is ramping up enforcement and will be specifically watching how servicers manage borrowers coming out of forbearance. In a Thursday compliance bulletin, the CFPB said it will monitor how servicers work to prevent a wave of foreclosures from occurring this fall. “Unprepared is unacceptable,” […]
Summary List Placement Student-debt cancelation was a major theme of the 2020 presidential campaign, and the issue is only gaining momentum. On Thursday, 15 of the largest labor unions in the country called on Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to fully erase debt for borrowers who have worked in public service for more than a decade. […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden’s infrastructure proposal can permanently lift the country’s economic output and drive stronger growth for years after the recovery, Robert Kaplan, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said. The president rolled out the American Jobs Plan in a Wednesday speech, marketing the measure as a critical next step […]
Summary List Placement Older millennials born in the 1980s are making a wealth comeback, but there’s a vast racial wealth gap lurking underneath this progress. In 2016, older millennials’ wealth levels were 34% below where they should be if the Great Recession hadn’t occured, per a 2018 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden has repeatedly hinged his massive spending plans on a series of tax hikes with the single rule that “no one making under $400,000 will see their federal taxes go up.” The assertion is true, depending on your definition of “no one.” Biden repeated the claim when unveiling the American Jobs […]
Summary List Placement A Morning Consult/Politico poll found that over half of voters support paying for President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package with tax hikes — but more support increasing taxes on the rich instead of corporations. Notably, respondents were polled on funding for a $3 trillion infrastructure plan, whereas Biden is reportedly planning $4 trillion of […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden has repeatedly said he aims to “go big” with plans to revitalize the US economy. For Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the administration’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan isn’t big enough. The president unveiled the American Jobs Plan on Wednesday as a follow-up to the $1.9 trillion stimulus approved in March. The […]
The average U.S. mortgage rate remained essentially unchanged last week, rising by just one basis point to 3.18%, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. A broader recovery of the economy has almost returned rates back to market “normalcy” as the standard 30-year FRM averaged 3.33% this same time last year. Although mortgage rates […]
Summary List Placement More Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week as the labor-market rebound hit snags. New jobless claims reached an unadjusted 719,000 for the week that ended Saturday, the Labor Department announced Thursday. That comes in above the median estimate of 678,000 from economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The Thursday reading also marks the […]
Remote Online Notarization, better known as RON, became a national priority in 2020, something it’s been working toward for a handful of years now. But as COVID-19 forced a new, socially distant world, 50 states were forced to take a hard look at the regulations they have around remote notarizations. This doesn’t mean that they […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden introduced a $2 trillion package that will form the first part of a likely $4 trillion infrastructure plan on Wednesday, a colossal measure aimed at overhauling the US economy, strengthening its competitiveness abroad, and leveling the playing field for the American middle class. “Now it’s time to rebuild,” Biden […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced Wednesday it is rescinding seven of its temporary policies put in place to protect consumers during the pandemic. The seven rescissions will be effective Thursday, April 1, with the government agency noting that it intends to exercise the full scope of its supervisory and enforcement authority provided under the […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden’s next spending push is bigger than his first, and the housing and education sectors are poised to benefit massively. The president is set to roll out his $2 trillion American Jobs Plan on Wednesday as a key follow-up to the $1.9 trillion fiscal stimulus passed earlier in March. The […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden will unveil the first, $2 trillion part of his $4 trillion infrastructure package on Wednesday, and from investing in broadband to funding electric vehicles, the technology sector can expect to see a huge influx of federal cash. The White House fact sheet on the package released on Wednesday said […]
Summary List Placement The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will dole out $14 billion in tax refunds to corporations thanks to controversial provisions included in last year’s CARES Act, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Wednesday. The $2.2 trillion stimulus package signed by President Donald Trump in the early stages of the pandemic included a swath […]
Summary List Placement President Joe Biden is unveiling the first part of his multitrillion-dollar infrastructure proposal today, which could include up to $3.5 trillion in tax hikes. Some unions and progressive organizations are saying he should go even bigger. On Tuesday, 82 national organizations, led by Americans for Tax Fairness, sent a letter to Biden […]