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Big Beautiful Bulletin
By Jeff Walton & Kelly Guest
The InGeniusly Speaking team took last Monday off to remember and honor those who have sacrificed for our freedom. As always, thank you to all service members and their families.
In this blended issue covering two weeks, there are a lot of stories about not a lot of market activity: April existing and pending home sales were both down - .05% and 6.3% respectively, and loan apps were down overall, though purchase apps showed slight signs of life last week with a 3% week-over-week and 18% YoY increase. Read more in the Market/Industry section below.
The rest of the news revolved around issues, with President Trump telling Fed Chair Powell that he’s "making a mistake" by not lowering interest rates, and NAR rethinking its ethics edict on speech that extended into its members’ non-business communications and social media that had legislatures considering how to allow members to sue the trade org for damages on what many felt was mission creep.
CHATTER
Conservatorship to Wall Street? Trump Talks Taking Fannie & Freddie Public
The President said on Truth Social, “Our great Mortgage Agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, provide a vital service to our Nation by helping hardworking Americans reach the American Dream — Home Ownership. I am working on TAKING THESE AMAZING COMPANIES PUBLIC, but I want to be clear, the U.S. Government will keep its implicit GUARANTEES, and I will stay strong in my position on overseeing them as President. These Agencies are now doing very well, and will help us to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
National Mortgage News' Andrew Martinez Breaks Down what the WIIFM for Lenders is in the "Big Beautiful Bill."
Fannie Feeling Better: GSE Upgrades Forecast for May
Total single-family home sales are expected to close 2025 at 4.92M units, with existing home sales accounting for 4.24M of those units
Revisions to the home sales forecast were driven in part by the ESR Group's lower expectations for mortgage rates, which it now forecasts to end 2025 and 2026 at 6.1% and 5.8%, respectively.
A Win for UWM: Appeals Court Ruled Against Challenge to “All-in” Initiative
UWM and Okavage Group have been engaged in a legal tango since 2021. Okavage filed an antitrust lawsuit against UWM over the lender’s ultimatum that prohibits mortgage brokers from working with competitors Rocket Mortgage and Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp.
Scrubbed Mission? HW reports that a Redfin stockholder has sued to block the merger with Rocket. The story says Redfin’s response calls the suit “the sort of baseless stockholder litigation that is reflexively filed after the announcement of a public company merger, no matter how lucrative and beneficial the transaction is to stockholders and regardless of how forthright and thorough the related disclosures.”
Supreme Lending to Acquire Michigan Mutual - HW
Dallas-based Supreme Lending has reached a deal to acquire Michigan Mutual, Inc. (MiMutual), adding a wholesale platform and a presence in Michigan to its operations. Supreme Lending originated $3.8 billion over the past 12 months, with most of its volume concentrated in Texas, Florida and California.
Pulte Taps Palantir: NMN
Fannie Mae will be partnering with Palantir, a company involved in introducing more artificial intelligence to financial services, as its regulator and conservator steps up its fight against fraud.
The AI firm will helpidentify patterns in Fannie's data that are indicative of misrepresentation.
Hola Olivia: DirectOffer launched ADA-compliant AI Assistant "Olivia" who can answer questions about properties in over 100 languages.
Just Drop It (NMP): NewRez LLC (DBA Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing) and The Bank of New York Mellon (BNYM) have asked the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts to dismiss a class action lawsuit alleging they inflated balances on second mortgages that had been long dormant following bankruptcy discharges.
Moody's Moody's Ratings (Moody's) has downgraded to Aa1 from Aaa the long-term senior unsecured debt ratings of Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae). Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's outlooks were also changed to stable from negative.
A&D Mortgage closed its second securitization of the year according to NMP, in a $426.67M transaction.
ServiceLink unveiled new enhancements to its digital closing solution, EXOS Close®.
MOVING & SHAKING
MBA announced that Kaitlin Hildner has joined the association as Associate Vice President of Loan Administration Policy.
Kevin Dilday returned to Guaranteed Rate Affinity as Sales Manager for the Mid-Atlantic.
Rate brought Dino Gaudagnino on as Regional VP of Reverse Mortgages.
GVC Mortgage named Brandy Walton as COO.
Change Lending beefed up CFO Madison Simm's title to include CEO.
Kind Lending appointed Geri Farr as Senior Vice President of West Retail Sales.
MARKET/INDUSTRY
Accentuate the Positive? Freddie's headline: Mortgage Rates Continue to Stay Under the 7% Threshold
Mortgage Applications Decreased 1.2% From One Week Earlier: MBA Weekly Survey for the week ending 5-23-25.
We got a great nugget: The core PCE brought great (but not widely touted) news last week according to Bill Bodnar in his latest Master the Markets segment. This week, we have to hope we don't get jolted the wrong way…
Sales Slid: NAR April EHS
Existing-home sales slid 0.5% in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.00 million. Sales retreated 2.0% from one year ago.
The median existing-home sales price rose 1.8% from April 2024 to $414,000, an all-time high for the month of April and the 22nd consecutive month of year-over-year price increases.
The inventory of unsold existing homes bounced 9.0% from the previous month to 1.45 million at the end of April, or the equivalent of 4.4 months' supply at the current monthly sales pace.
"Home sales have been at 75% of normal or pre-pandemic activity for the past three years, even with seven million jobs added to the economy. Pent-up housing demand continues to grow, though not realized. Any meaningful decline in mortgage rates will help release this demand." - NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.
Poopy Pendings: Pending Sales Down 6.3% in April (NAR)
Compared to one month ago, pending home sales fell in all four U.S. regions.
Year-over-year, contract signings ascended in the Midwest. Conversely, the Northeast, South and West reduced – with the biggest downswing in the West, followed by the South.
"At this critical stage of the housing market, it is all about mortgage rates. Despite an increase in housing inventory, we are not seeing higher home sales. Lower mortgage rates are essential to bring home buyers back into the housing market." - NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun
Zombie Population Steady: ATTOM Data’s Latest Vacant Property & Zombie Foreclosure Report
1.4M U.S. homes are vacant (1.3%) – unchanged for 13th straight quarter.
Q225 foreclosures were up 4.8$ QoQ, but down 6.3% YoY
Zombie foreclosures are 3.3% of pre-foreclosures, up slightly YoY
States with highest vacancy rates include OK, KS, AL
States with lowest vacancy rates are NH, VT, NJ
It Depends on Situation and Motivation: BofA 2025 Home Buying Insights Report
According to Bank of America account data, the total number of people moving has reversed a four-year freefall, with the number of people moving within the same city up 11% YoY in Q125 and those moving to another city up 7% YoY.