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Lightening Speed, Chainsaws & Pearl-clutching
By Jeff Walton & Kelly Guest
What a week.
It’s not often you see the world’s richest man wearing sunglasses indoors, dancing around with a chainsaw accompanied by the extraordinarily-coiffed foreign dignitary that gifted it to him. Media, pundits and the public are all scrambling to keep up with the speed of news coming out of Washington D.C. and to disseminate their kudos or outrage commensurate with their opinions.
The industry trades are working hard to report the news and pursue different angles they believe are of interest and import to their audiences:
HousingWire is following the bouncing ball by keeping an updated list of the Trump administration’s orders and moves that affect the industry, in addition to reporting as news is made.
National Mortgage News has a lot of analysis and opinion on agency and regulatory moves and how they may play out.
National Mortgage Professional has focused on actual and proposed cuts to agency employees and programs, with emphasis on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)-related issues.
CHATTER
Builders School Congress: NAHB Chair Testifies on Capitol Hill
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) told Congress that federal permitting inefficiencies delay housing projects, raise construction costs and exacerbate the nation’s housing affordability crisis. Chairman Carl Harris noted that the Clean Water Act (CWA) stands out among the regulated community, and said EPA and Army Corps of Engineers blatantly overstep their federal authority.
You Don't Declare: HUD Halts Enforcement of "Equal Access Rule"
HUD Secretary Scott Turner issued an order to ensure housing programs, shelters and other HUD-funded providers offer services to Americans based on their sex at birth: male or female, not simply what sex a person declares they are. Turner's order affects Community Planning & Development (CPD)-administered programs.
HUD Getting DOGE-D: $4M in DEI Contracts Cut
The contracts were found by the HUD DOGE Task Force and the discovery is part of the department’s larger $260 million review of all contract expenditures.
ROCKET Trying To Launch Renters: Announces Closing Cost Credits for Renters
RocketRentRewards is billed as the homeownership industry's first offer to provide closing cost credits for renters. With a Rocket mortgage, homebuyers earn 10% back on the last 12 months of rental payments – receiving up to $5,000 in lender credits toward closing costs. With the national average rent at $1,800, that translates to $2,160 applied toward a client's closing costs.
Fannie Mae reported net income of $17B for 2024, $4.1B in Q4
“Fannie Mae concluded the year with a strong quarter [ ]. In 2024, we grew
our net worth to nearly $95 billion, continued to build our regulatory capital, and carried out our mission. Our strong results were driven by guaranty fee income, consistent with the transformation of our business model that began well over a decade ago. For the year, we provided $381 billion in liquidity to the U.S. housing market.” - Priscilla Almodovar, President & CEO
Freddie Mac announced net income of $3.2B for Q424and $11.9B for full-year 2024
“Today Freddie Mac reported strong 2024 earnings of $11.9B and a net worth of $60B. We delivered $411B of liquidity into the U.S. housing finance system, helping 1.6 million families buy, refinance or rent a home in 2024.”- Diana W. Reid, CEO
Climbing Credit: New York Fed Releases Q424 Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit
Total household debt increased by $93B to reach $18.04T in Q424. Mortgage balances rose by $11 billion to stand at $12.61T, while credit card balances increased by $45B from the previous quarter to reach $1.21T at the end of December.
Gens Y & Z on Track For Trillions: Multipolitan says the two young demos are set to inherit an estimated $84 trillion by 2045, representing the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history.
NMN Offered a “Hot Tip” and Suggests Adding an Insurance Broker to Your Origination Team.
Little Win for NAR: HW Reports Phoenix Association "Blinked First"
The Phoenix Area Association of Realtors (PAR) backed off and eliminated its offering of a membership to their board without joining the state association or National Association of Realtors. PAR's challenge is one of many to NAR's requirement that its members join state and local boards.
MOVING & SHAKING
Lotta Letters: Former FHFA Director Hired by OMB for CFPB (HW)
Mark Calabria was hired by the Office of Management and Budget and assigned to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until its director appointee is confirmed.
Industry Influencer Sue Woodard joins InGenius as Chief Customer Officer.
Sunflower Bank announced that Bo Scott has joined Sunflower Bank as Executive Vice President and Chief Banking Officer.
Asurity Advisors says industry-leading regulatory compliance, banking law, and corporate finance executive, Carl Pry, has joined the team as Senior Advisor.
MARKET/INDUSTRY
A Pretty Good Week: In his latest Master the Markets segment, Bill Bodnar talked about how the 10-year note cooperated and interesting nuggets in the Fed minutes. Next week, eyes are on core PCE numbers.
Mortgage Rates Trend Down: Freddie 2-20-24
Mortgage rates decreased slightly this week. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has stayed just under 7% for five consecutive weeks and in that time has fluctuated less than 20 bps. This stability continues to bode well for potential buyers and sellers as the spring homebuying season approaches.
Mortgage applications decreased 6.6% from one week earlier: MBA Weekly Survey for the week ending 2-14-25.
TRANSUNION Predicts Growth in Originations for Multiple Products This Year
The bureau's Q424 Quarterly Credit Industry Insights Report says mortgage see the biggest gains, predicting a 13.3% YoY increase in purchase mortgages from 4.6M in 2024 to 5.7M in 2025. TransUnion's EVP of Financial Services Jason Laky said, "The Federal Reserve has signaled that it will not rush into interest rate cuts, potentially keeping rates at a level that could give consumers pause. However, we still believe that many consumer credit products will have higher originations in 2025. This will range from modest growth in auto and unsecured personal loans to more significant increases in mortgage."
Monthly Numbers Down, Annuals Up: NAR EHS
Existing-home sales slid 4.9% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.08 million. However, sales rose 2.0% from one year ago, the fourth straight monthly year-over-year increase.
The median existing-home sales price advanced 4.8% from January 2024 to $396,900, the 19th consecutive month of year-over-year price increases.
The inventory of unsold existing homes grew 3.5% from the prior month to 1.18 million at the end of January, or the equivalent of 3.5 months' supply at the current monthly sales pace.
Ample Appreciation: Redfin Says U.S. Housing Market Gained $2.5T in 2024
The combined value of U.S. homes gained $2.5T in 2024 to reach $49.7T, according to a Redfin analysis.
The company says total value of the U.S. housing market grew 5.2% YoY - the slowest growth in a calendar year since 2019 and the second slowest since 2011, according to their review.
Redfin also says inventory has reached a 6-year high, according to their January analysis of MLS data.
Hazy Shade Of Housing: First American's January HPI Shows Slowest Price Growth Since June 2023
“Elevated mortgage rates reduce house-buying power for potential buyers, holding back demand. At the same time, inventory levels are increasing as some potential sellers list their homes for sale after coming to terms with ‘higher-for-longer’ rates and more new-home completions hit the market, further dampening price growth.Much like the groundhog seeing its shadow, we expect this ‘housing winter’ to persist if mortgage rates remain high while inventories keep climbing.” First American Chief Economist Mark Fleming
FORECLOSURES UP ON MONTHLY BASIS, DOWN ANNUALLY: ATTOM Data
January brought an 8% rise in foreclosure activity from the previous month but a 7% decline year-over-year.
The states with the highest foreclosure rates are Delaware, Nevada, Indiana, Illinois, and Utah, in that order.
ATTOM also says that 1.4 million (1,372,396) residential properties in the United States are vacant. That figure represents 1.3 percent, or one in 76 homes, across the nation – the same as in the fourth quarter of last year and up slightly from a year ago: Q125 Vacant Property & Zombie Foreclosure Report.
FORBEARANCES DECREASING: MBA Loan Monitoring Survey
The total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 7 basis points from 0.47% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior month to 0.40% as of January 31, 2025. MBA estimates that 200,000 homeowners are in forbearance plans.
“While the number of forbearance requests grew in January, the number of forbearance exits outweighed that pick-up, reaching the highest level since June 2022. This outcome was somewhat surprising given the recent events in California, but it speaks to recovery in other parts of the country affected by natural disasters and the movement of aged government loans out of forbearance.” - Marina Walsh, CMB, MBA’s Vice President of Industry Analysis.
FLAT FANNIE: ESR Group Makes Slight Adjustments to Housing/Mortgage Forecasts
Fannie Mae's Economic & Strategic Research group expects rates will end 2025 and 2026 at 6.6 and 6.5%, respectively. They upgraded their existing home sales forecast due to stronger-than-expected sales data in December, but slightly downgraded new home sales estimates. The ESR group also modified its single-family mortgage originations to $1.89T in 2025 (previously $1.92T) and $2.22T in 2026 (previously $2.27T).
FAREWELL FIXERS: Fixer-Uppers are Out, Remodeled Homes Are In - Zillow
Zillow research finds fixer-uppers are selling for the largest discount in years as buyers seek out move-in-ready properties:
Buyers pay 3.7% more than expected for remodeled homes.
Remodeled homes get 26% more daily saves and 30% more daily shares on Zillow than similar homes.
Fixer-uppers sell for 7.3% less than other similar homes, the largest discount in three years.