Despite lower mortgage rates, housing starts ended the year on a downturn, after posting a large monthly gain in November.New construction starts fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.460 million units, down 4.3% month over month, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Census B

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is sounding the alarm about an accelerating rate of scams that most commonly target older Americans, where a bad actor will pose as an official representative of the Bureau or another federal agency.The CFPB published a blog post on Tuesday describing

The bankruptcy plan administrator for Reverse Mortgage Investment Trust (RMIT), the parent company of former industry lender Reverse Mortgage Funding (RMF), has filed a court petition to convert from Chapter 11 bankruptcy to Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The RMIT/RMF estate has run “out of money” to continu

Top U.S. mortgage lender United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) has rebranded its consumer-facing website FindAMortgageBroker.com to Mortgage Matchup.Mortgage Matchup will continue to be a consumer-facing website focused on homebuyers and real estate agents and offer educational material around the home bu

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in the spotlight again over the role some housing-industry experts say they could play in reducing mortgage rates if they resumed a more active investor role in the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) market.That’s a role those government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) have

Big Four title firm First American Financial believes the cybersecurity incident it incurred on Dec. 20, 2023, will have material impact on its fourth quarter 2023 financial results, according to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last Friday.In the filing, First American i

Mortgage rates at their lowest level in three weeks led to an increase in borrowers’ demand for home loans last week, spreading some optimism in the industry in the first few weeks of 2024. To prove it, analysts are already discussing a potential refi recovery. Overall, mortgage applications rose by

New home construction exploded early in the pandemic as soaring home demand squeezed existing inventory nationwide, giving homebuilders a much bigger share of a shrinking pie.However, as mortgage rates hit multi-decade highs, cooling demand and shrinking the pool of qualified buyers for new homes, h

For the second consecutive month, homebuilders have become more optimistic. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) report rose seven points month-over-month to a reading of 44 in January.The report attributes this sharp increase in builder confidence

Did you know that in 2022, both younger and older Baby Boomers made up the largest generation of American homebuyers? This cohort accounted for 1,950,000 properties — equating to 39% of total homes purchased!1With over 12,000 Americans turning 65 every day in 2024, this burgeoning market will undoub

David Stevens, a legend of the mortgage banking industry who helmed the Federal Housing Agency and the Mortgage Bankers Association in a career that spanned four decades, has died.“The real estate finance community mourns the loss today of one of its great leaders and fiercest advocates,” current MB

The latest copycat commission lawsuit alleges that real estate industry players in Nevada have colluded to artificially inflate real estate agent commissions. The suit was filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas by Nathaniel Whaley, who sold a home in Las Vegas in April 2022 and paid a b

California-based fix-and-flip lender Anchor Loans launched a third-party originator (TPO) channel to serve mortgage brokers, banks, private and non-qualified mortgage (non-QM) lenders and other referral partners whose clients are home builders, developers and investors. Anchor Loans’ TPO channel wil

Optimal Blue’s newly launched mobile app for the Optimal Blue PPE – one of the industry’s most widely used product, pricing and eligibility engine – gives loan officers full product and search capabilities from their mobile phones.By giving loan officers the flexibility to access scenario pricing fr

A reverse mortgage may be a viable financial instrument to help pay for older Americans’ long-term care priorities, but they — and their implications on entitlement eligibility — need to be fully considered.This is according to a new column at MarketWatch, comparing reverse mortgage product features

When the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME)’s CEO Katie Sweeney established Broker Action Coalition (BAC) – AIME’s grassroots network that initiates communications between mortgage brokers and their legislators – in 2022, it was initially to gauge the industry’s appetite for advocacy

A few days ago, the three main defendants—National Association of Realtors, Keller Williams and HomeServices—in the Sitzer/Burnett case filed two motions with the court. The first was a motion for judgement as a matter of law and the second was a motion for a new trial. These actions by the three fi

The services of Finnish digital floor plan firm CubiCasa are now available subscribers of yet another multiple listing services. Realcomp MLS announced last Wednesday that its users now had free access to CubiCasa through an alliance with the proptech company.Agents and brokers who subscribe to the

Empty-nester baby boomers own roughly twice as many of the nation’s three-bedroom-plus homes as millennials with children, according to a report from Redfin published on Tuesday.The report is based on a Redfin analysis of U.S. Census data from 2022, that breaks down the share of three-bedroom-plus h