December 03 2021

A new report from ATTOM says that the number of mortgage originations dropped sharply in the third quarter. The company says there were 3.59 million residential mortgages originated during that period, a 3,2 percent increase over the 3.48 million during the same quarter in 2020, but an 8.4 percent decline from the 3.92 million originations in the second quarter of 2012, the largest quarterly dip in more than a year. The quarter-over-quarter slide followed another in Q2 and marked the first time in more than two years that total lending decreased in two consecutive quarters. ...(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.

December 02 2021

Like a rising tide, rising prices are pushing a lot of other financial elements higher. Earlier this week surging home prices drove a near $100K increase in conforming loan limits, now regulators have raised the dollar threshold for an exemption to the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) based on rising wages. Section 129H of TILA establishes special appraisal requirements for "higher-risk mortgages," termed "higher-priced mortgage loans" or "HPMLs" in the agencies' regulations. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Reserve Board, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) jointly issued final rules implementing these requirements, effective January 18, 2014. The rules, however, exempted several loan types from the appraisal requirements, among them transactions of $25,000 or less. The rule allowed for annual adjustments of that amount and this year the threshold was $27,200.  ...(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.

December 01 2021

National spending on construction spending rose slightly in October, but for the second month in a row, the increase wasn't driven by the residential sector. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that construction put in place during the month was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.598 trillion, an 0.2 percent increase from September and up 8.6 percent compared to October 2020. On a non-adjusted basis, spending totaled $141.911 billion, down from $145.746 billion in September. For the year-to-date (YTD) spending totals $1.373 trillion, 7.5 percent more than the $1.231 spent to the same point in 2020. Privately funded construction fell by 0.2 percent from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted rate of $1.245 trillion. This represents an 11.1 percent increase from the prior October....(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.