Online retail giant Amazon announced this week that it is committing an additional $1.4 billion to its Housing Equity Fund that will go toward the creation and preservation of roughly 14,000 affordable housing units across three major metropolitan areas in which it maintains a corporate presence.The

With each year, technology helps us to work smarter in some ways but not so smart in other ways. One critical area as generative AI becomes increasingly our personal assistant is to not outsource the upholding of fair housing laws. Why?If you did not know, generative AI already has instances of cont

Wells Fargo‘s internal credit-scoring algorithm is at the center of a lawsuit that plaintiffs say resulted in more than 100,000 disparately impacted minority applicants. The lawsuit stems from a 2022 Bloomberg investigation that found Wells Fargo was the only large bank to deny more Black applicants

New-home purchase mortgage applications rose 1% month over month and 13.8% year over year in May, according to data released Thursday by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).The data is derived from the trade group’s survey of homebuilders. The MBA also estimated that sales of new single-family ho

Today’s double event of the CPI inflation report and the Fed meeting gave us something that I have been waiting for: a hint from Fed Chairman Jay Powell that the labor market has softened. Today he acknowledged what I have been talking about for months: the Fed’s key data lines are at pre-COVID-19 l

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) this week issued a public request for information for plans submitted by government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under the Duty to Serve (DTS) program that aims to serve underserved markets from 2025 through 2027.Established by the

Lawyers for the U.S. government have requested an extension of deadlines related to discovery in the case brought by Texas Capital Bank (TCB) against Ginnie Mae over the extinguishment of a priority lien tied to the loan portfolio collateral of Reverse Mortgage Funding (RMF), according to court docu

A mayor in a region of New Zealand, who recently suggested using reverse mortgages to fund various cost-of-living increases faced by the nation’s retirees, is pushing back against the backlash his comments created.Tim Cadogan, who serves as mayor of the Central Otago district in south central New Ze

Persistent economic trends that include inflation, a strong labor market and real gross domestic product (GDP) growth will continue to “dampen” mortgage origination activity through at least the end of 2026, according to the newest U.S. mortgage originations outlook from financial services forecasti

Home equity solutions and sale-leaseback platform EasyKnock announced a partnership on Tuesday with financial fitness and homeownership platform FinLocker that will make FinLocker’s tools available free of charge to EasyKnock customers.The FinLocker app includes a “personalized suite of tools“ desig

As expected by virtually all market participants, the Federal Reserve maintained its short-term policy interest rate between 5.25% and 5.5% at its June meeting that concluded Wednesday afternoon.That’s the seventh consecutive time policymakers with the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) kept the

Mortgage applications shot up 15.6% from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) weekly application survey for the week ending June 7.On an unadjusted basis, the market composite index increased 26% compared with the previous week. The refinance index increa

Should we be concerned about the number of homeowners who are underwater on their homes? Recent data from Attom showed that 1 out of every 37 homes were severely underwater, something I talked about on CNBC recently, but CoreLogic data provides a reality check on this topic. Let’s dig in.One of the

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) on Wednesday announced that Owen Lee, CEO at Success Mortgage Partners (SMP), has been nominated to serve as the association’s vice chairman for the forthcoming 2025 membership year.Lee’s nomination was announced by Mark Jones, the 2024 MBA chairman and preside

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has terminated the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) direct endorsement approval for Open Mortgage in Iowa. “HUD placed Open Mortgage on credit watch for the Des Moines HOC [homeownership center], which only impacts our loans in Iowa,” Ch

Sotheby’s International Realty is launching its eighth office in Michigan as the firm announced the affiliation of the The Home Seekers Real Estate Group on Tuesday.Home Seekers, which is based in Okemos, Michigan, will now operate as White Pine Sotheby’s International Realty. The firm, which is own

An article written by an Atlanta-based certified financial planner and published Tuesday by Forbes indicates that retirement may not be as difficult as many Americans think.Wes Moss, who hosts the “Retire Sooner” podcast and has 20-plus years of experience as an investment adviser, offered advice th

There is a large gap between how the American public feels about the business practice changes outlined in the National Association of Realtors’ nationwide commission lawsuit settlement agreement and how real estate professionals feel about them. According to a survey published by Clever Real Estate

California-based loanDepot plans to extend its $497.8 million in senior notes due in the fourth quarter of 2025 at a lower maturity and a higher interest rate. The transaction reflects a business under stress but brings temporary relief to the company’s financials, analysts told HousingWire. loanDep