Mortgage News

• NAR Gut Punches Zillow

  Ah… It’s nice to see NAR step up and do something for their 1.2 million members that pay them hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year. But is it too little too late? Even if it is, it’s so nice to see them take a stand. What’s more is the way they did it […]

  The post NAR Gut Punches Zillow appeared first on National Real Estate Post.

• Purchases Now Account For a Majority of New Mortgages

  Black Knight has launched a new monthly report covering mortgage origination activity as gathered through its Optimal Blue loan product and pricing engine. The company says its Originations Market Monitor will publish a series of key indicators drawn from Optimal Blue data as well as secondary market insight from Black Knight's hedging platforms. The initial report covers activity for March and shows that at month's end the average 30-year conforming rate had increased by nearly 60 basis points over the course of the month to 3.34 percent. Still, this was 20 basis points below the rate at the same point in 2020. Average rates by loan product are shown below.

• Freddie Mac Sees Rates and Prices Leveling Off Through 2022

  Freddie Mac's Economic and Housing Research Group finds a lot to like in the present economic environment. . The company's quarterly forecast credits the increasing availability of COVID-19 vaccines and the easing of virus related restrictions, the passage of the American Rescue plan and its cash stimulus for households, as setting the stage for economic growth and sending consumer confidence to a post pandemic high in March. The labor market, while still needing to add 8.4 million jobs, put 916,000 on the books last month, the greatest gain since August.