The Desjardins Group, a Quebec-based lender, is no longer issuing mortgages in high-risk flood areas, multiple media outlets reported this week. That is stoking concerns that similar measures could be taken in other places, including the U.S. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, roughly 1.5

Despite the protests of the title insurance industry, Fitch Ratings does not believe the lender title insurance waiver pilot program for certain refinance transactions announced by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) on Thursday will have an impact on title insurer ratings.In an emailed statem

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will be closely scrutinizing what it described as “junk fees” imposed on borrowers when closing a mortgage. Its new priority has provoked strong criticism from the mortgage industry. President Joe Biden announced a housing plan during his 2024 State of

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week announced new rules that will require publicly traded companies to disclose climate risks and how much greenhouse gas emissions they produce. But compared with a prior proposed version of the rules from 2022, media outlets have characterized the

Women face a series of challenges that add up to make retirement prospects “pretty bleak,” including issues such as gender pay inequality, longer life spans and a lack of savings based on U.S. Census Bureau data. But Cindy Hounsell, founder and president of the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirem

Based on the notion that far too many U.S. homeowners are “house-rich, cash-poor,” home equity investment firm Hometap provides clients with a way to tap into their home equity instead of selling their home or taking out a loan.Hometap, as an investor, provides cash in exchange for a share of their

Since the original filing of a lawsuit about the extinguishment of a priority lien tied to the loan portfolio collateral of Reverse Mortgage Funding (RMF), Texas Capital Bank (TCB) has argued in court that it was given verbal assurances from high-ranking officials at Ginnie Mae and the Federal Housi

It was mid-February when clients, family and friends began asking Jason Posnick about strange postcards appearing in their mailboxes. Thanks to Lisa Chinatti, the broker-owner at Chinatti Realty Group, he was not completely caught off guard.“Lisa is super on the pulse. She talks with a lot of people

President Joe Biden entered the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday night, filing past a narrowly divided Congress during an election year and preparing to give a State of the Union address that would feature a relatively substantive focus on housing.“If I were smart, I’d go hom

Steve Harney, founder of Keeping Current Matters and a force in real estate for four decades, died suddenly on Sunday, March 4, at age 68.“As we mourn the loss of Steve, we hold tight to the incredible impact he had on agents, our industry, and the fact that his legacy will live on at Keeping Curren

Sotheby’s International Realty is expanding its footprint in the Golden State. On Thursday, the Anywhere brand announced that Northern California firm Vista Real Estate had joined the Sotheby’s network.The Redding, California-based firm will now operate as Shasta Sotheby’s International Realty. This

President Joe Biden’s new plan to lower housing costs includes a pilot program that waives the requirement for lender’s title insurance on certain refinance transactions, according to the White House. The plan will be announced during his 2024 State of the Union address on Thursday night. However, t

The way that the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs interact is unfair to low-income workers and retirees, and changing the Social Security benefit applied to SSI would “allow low-income older adults to obtain additional income during retirement.” This is according to a

The migration surge that characterized the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic has come to an end, according to an analysis from John Burns Research & Consulting.Against a backdrop of constrained housing supply, the pace of migration has slowed compared to 2020 and 2021. But where movement does occ

The White House announced that President Joe Biden will call on lawmakers in the House of Representatives and the Senate to address a series of housing issues in his State of the Union address, which will be delivered to a joint session of Congress and televised nationally on Thursday night.In the a

Connecticut-headquartered mortgage servicer and lender Planet Home Lending has hired Doug Long as senior vice president and divisional sales manager. Long, who brings more than 20 years of experience in the mortgage industry, will be responsible for building Planet’s retail networks and will also ha

Home sellers looking to maximize their sale price may want to avoid the start of the busy spring buying season and list their properties closer to the midpoint of the year, according to a Zillow analysis released Thursday.In a study of 2023 home sales, the real estate analytics company found that ho

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicated in recent congressional testimony that interest rate hikes are now likely at the “peak for the current tightening cycle,” after signaling in November of last year that the Fed was close to the end of its war on inflation.For investors in the private-labe

Buoyed by a rise in home prices, U.S. homeowners with mortgages saw their home equity increase by 8.6% year over year in fourth-quarter 2023.Homeowners saw an average increase of slightly more than $24,000 compared to Q4 2022, adding up to a collective gain of $1.3 trillion, according to CoreLogic’s

The real estate market has always been subject to fluctuations and changes, and as we enter the year 2024, many homeowners, buyers, and investors are curious about how the market will perform. With the experiences of the past year, it's important to take a closer look at the current state of the rea