Mortgage rates posted a big jump last week after Wednesday’s release of a higher-than-expected inflation report. As a result, HousingWire’s Mortgage Rates Center showed the average 30-year fixed rate for conventional loans at 7.24% on Tuesday, up from 7.16% one week earlier. That’s roughly 40 basis

Competition in the housing market is heating up heading into May and June. Home prices are surging in major U.S. metros, with coastal California cities and Seattle leading the charge in monthly home value growth, according to Zillow’s newest market report.San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego

In the late 2000s, Ryan Schmidt was a restaurant manager with no real understanding of the reverse mortgage product. It wouldn’t take long for that to change, however, and Schmidt now serves as the vice president of partner engagement at Finance of America Reverse (FAR), the reverse mortgage industr

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will not count buyer’s agent commissions as part of their allowable interested party contributions (IPCs), according to announcements from the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) on Monday.The GSEs noted that this guidance was not an update to their selling guides but

As older people increasingly express their preference to age in place in their own homes, family members will oftentimes be required to provide some semblance of care for their loved ones in later life. Caregiving challenges can be compounded if there’s only one child in the family, but a reverse mo

Wholesale lender A&D Mortgage unveiled a new and enhanced version of its partner portal, Artificial Intelligence in Mortgage, or AMI, on Monday.The AI-powered portal integrates advanced technologies into A&D Mortgage’s existing partner portal. It notably features a more intuitive user interface, sea

We saw a big jump in mortgage rates last week. The 30-year fixed rate mortgage, according to the HousingWire Mortgage Rates Center, is now over 7.2% — that’s 50 basis points above where we were at the start of the year. At that time, most of the voices in the media assumed that mortgage rates had pe

Keller Williams was named to an additional class-action lawsuit this week that takes issue with alterations made to the brokerage’s profit-sharing program. In the past few weeks, 11 agents formerly affiliated with Keller Williams — Jerri Moulder, David Bueker, Robert Hill, Kevin Ortiz, Edward Fordyc

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) has submitted a letter to President Joe Biden, urging him to decrease federal spending and to take action on affordable housing issues.“A particularly acute concern to Nevadans is the housing market, which is reeling from the combined effects of high inflation and intere

Last week’s above-consensus inflation figures brought the mortgage market back to a sour reality: The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate, an index closely watched by industry experts, may be close to or even above the 7% level for longer than previously expected.If this scenario unfolds, analysts a

Although more agents are fielding questions about the commission lawsuits than they were a quarter ago, they also remain optimistic about where the housing market is headed in the second quarter of 2024, according to the RealTrends Q2 2024 AgentPulse survey.The survey, which was conducted between th

Mortgage rates headed higher last week after the CPI inflation report, but now, with news of a wider war in the Middle East, should we expect even higher rates? Some argue that money will go into the safety of the bond market, while others say a wider war can lead to higher inflation and higher rate

Job recruiters in the South are facing hurdles to attract skilled professionals from the Midwest despite offering competitive compensation packages, according to a Bloomberg report published Friday. That’s because many of these potential hires are locked into super-low 30-year mortgages.During the f

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced the appointment of Andrew Lofton on Friday as its new administrator for the Northwest region, encompassing the states of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.In this role, Lofton will “serve as HUD’s liaison to mayors, city manager

Ginnie Mae announced this week that it is adding a new pool-level, low-to-moderate income (LMI) disclosure to its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM)-backed Securities (HMBS) program.The move is part of an ongoing effort by the company to improve its securities disclosures, something that began i

The ongoing lack of housing affordability is prompting more renters to doubt their ability to become homeowners. According to a recent Redfin survey, nearly 40% of U.S. renters don’t believe in their ability to ever own a home, up from roughly 27% less than a year ago.While lack of affordability is

Reverse mortgage industry professionals have spoken for months about the consequences of high interest rates on their ability to pursue business, and now AARP has taken a closer look at the impacts.While higher rates are bad news for the mortgage industry in a broad sense, the impact on reverse lend

As artificial intelligence continues to grow in prominence, mortgage professionals “must carefully evaluate and manage” their use of AI and “focus on deriving the benefits while avoiding potentially catastrophic risks.”That’s one of the key conclusions reached by the BlackFin Group in a recently pub