While foreclosure starts are down to the lowest levels since 2008, the impact of a national health crisis and related foreclosure moratoria is different for various parts of the country. ATTOM Data Solutions, which published a September and Q3 2020 ...
Read More »Millions Missed Housing Payments Last Month
In estimating how much distress the COVID-19 crisis has brought upon homeowners, the Mortgage Banker's Association (MBA) determined, via its Research Institute for Housing America (RIHA), that some 6 million households missed rent or mortgage payments in September. Though the ...
Read More »Working at the Speed of Necessity
Editor's note: This story originally appeared in the October edition of DSNews, out now. There is nothing like a pandemic and life-and-death consequences to accelerate innovation. This is especially true in the pharmaceutical and medical field, where scientists are rushing to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. Surprisingly, it’s also true in the appraisal industry. As the ...
Read More »Tracking the Week’s Forbearance Activity
After last week’s news regarding the significant drop in forbearance volumes, the market saw an uptick of 19,000 loans this week. Black Knight’s McDash Flash Forbearance Tracker shows that though volumes increased week-over-week, there is still reason to be optimistic ...
Read More »Is COVID-19 Really Causing Migration to Suburbs?
Reports that COVID-19 is causing a migration from urban centers to suburbs abound, but are those stories entirely accurate? First American Chief Economist Mark Fleming recently revealed his insights regarding those rumors about pandemic-driven migration in America. Specifically, Fleming weighed ...
Read More »Banks Report: ‘Better-Than-Expected’ Q3 Results
The major banks this week reported Q3 returns. For top three U.S. banks—Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs—NASDAQ summarized that " results were notably better than expected" but "mixed." JPMorgan Chase also reported better financial performance than was ...
Read More »What Happens When Forbearance Programs Expire?
Moratoria and the CARES Act have effectively halted foreclosure activity—those filings are at an all-time low—but the numbers "are artificially low," analysts say. Some predict a significant "burst" once government programs expire. ATTOM Data Solutions, which collects and analyzes foreclosure data, ...
Read More »Under Trump or Biden, GSE Reform Path is ‘Uncertain’
In September 2019, President Donald Trump and his administration initiated a process whereby Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would exit conservatorship. Former Freddie Mac CEO Don Layton, now a Senior Industry Fellow at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, says ...
Read More »The Housing Market’s ‘Remarkable Comeback’
Even as businesses begin to reopen, the unemployment rate remains a cause for concern among economists. That makes for much fiscal uncertainty. But despite weakness in the labor market, the housing sector remains robust—it has been reported over the past ...
Read More »A ‘Record-Breaking’ Year for Mortgage-Backed Securities
Ginnie Mae announced that it issued $748 billion in MBSs in the fiscal year ending September 30, which it said resulted in more than "2.8 million households securing affordable homeownership and rental housing." The dollar amount, according to Ginnie Mae, ...
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