John H Ortega

Purchase originations are expected to increase

The bigger question is how long it will last and how much lower might rates go?

Attitudes about selling a home increased even more. Sixty-one percent said it was a good time, up from 55 percent in February

CoreLogic forecasts an increase of 3.2 percent in home prices over the 12 months ending in February 2022.

Eight-two percent of buyers' agents said home staging made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home.

How much improvement?

After today's moderate increase,they're dangerously close to the highs...

The quarter-over-quarter decline in housing finance profitability was the first since the start of the coronavirus pandemic

Seventy-five percent of plans expiring in recent weeks have been extended.

One could only cite one development as driving rates to extremely low levels in 2020 and then higher at an extremely fast pace in 2021, it's the shift of momentum in the pandemic.

During the last month of the year, total construction spending was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.490 trillion. This was a 1.0 percent gain from November and 5.7 percent higher than the same month in 2019. On a non-adjusted basis $112.706 billion in construction was put in place compared to $124.760 billion in November.

Rising rates and recent refinancing activity has caused some moderation of refinancing incentive. The number of homeowners able to qualify for and benefit from refinancing (saving at least 75 basis points on a new loan) declined to 16.7 million on January 14 from 18.7 million at the start of the year.

An increase of 20,000 loans in active forbearance plans during the week ended January 26. This, the company said, continues the trend of mid- and late month increases that has been apparent for some time

Pending home sales contracts have dipped during recent months, but I would attribute that to having too few homes for sale

middle class Americans are finding homeownership more inaccessible than ever

That the pandemic is worse today than it was last spring appears to be finally dawning on a lot of consumers and the Home Purchase Sentiment Index...

Does the mortgage market really care that much about politics? In a roundabout way, yes, very much!

RMD has identified four reverse mortgage trends that the industry should be looking out for as we prepare to welcome a whole new year of business