Mortgages

But March's overall late payment rate was 1.3 percentage points higher than one year ago, while the 90-day-plus rate was 2.3 percentage points higher.

Home prices grew at a record annual pace in April but indicators of a possible slowdown popped up in May, Redfin noted.

The four-week high in forbearance exits also helped drive the considerable drop in plans, according to Black Knight.

Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, the Banking Committee's top Republican, is talking up the prospects of a bipartisan deal to overhaul Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But Democratic leaders sound less motivated to change the status quo for the government-sponsored enterprises.

Refinancings more than doubled the year-ago amount and made up for the slowed purchase activity, according to Attom Data Solutions.

The company provides a secondary market outlet for its retail and wholesale lending corporate sibling as well as for small balance commercial loans.

For the first time since the pandemic began, the share of borrowers who are 30 days or more late on their payment is below 5%, Black Knight found.

Average loan size also continues to increase, as demand remains high and costs in homebuilding materials rise this year.

Only 0.9% of mortgage borrowers are currently at least 90 days delinquent. That figure could rise as high as 3.8% once pandemic-related deferrals lapse — still well below the 6% mark reached after the Great Recession, according to research by the New York Fed.

Economic recovery should soar into the summer as vaccination rates climb and restrictions loosen up, but low inventory is likely to limit mortgage activity into the next year, according to Fannie Mae.

Issuance of capital market instruments aimed at protecting one government-sponsored enterprise from distressed mortgage credit events staged a relatively quick rebound in 2020, a new Federal Housing Finance Agency report shows.

With little transitional disruption, the bigger players on the non-agency side could gain a hefty share of non-owner-occupied mortgage volume as a result of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s caps on such purchases, a KBRA analysis finds.

Numbers fell across the board, with private-label and portfolio loans declining most.

Raising the capital gains tax and code changes could have more of an impact on the public debt market than rising interest rates, according to a panelist at the Urban Land Institute's Spring event.

Most of the activity covered vacant and abandoned properties or commercial loans, according to Attom Data Solutions.

It’s getting easier to close bigger loans for higher-priced properties, but credit is expanding slower for first-time buyers.

The total number of loans in this category dropped 11 basis points from week to week according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Meanwhile, the amount of unpaid balance in forbearance dropped almost 23% since the start of the year, a separate report from Black Knight found.

While the product was hard to find after the start of the pandemic, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s recent changes to Appendix Q are giving a pair of large wholesalers the chance to offer it as a qualified mortgage.

Fannie and Freddie's regulator says the companies must comply with the new Qualified Mortgage standard by the summer, while the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has extended the deadline to 2022. The conflicting timetables have stoked uncertainty in the market.

The company aims to use the additional capacity to get its non-qualified mortgage business back to producing $125 million per month, and anticipates more purchases of mortgage servicing rights, representatives said in its Q1 earnings call.