Mortgages

The expected rise in refinance volume overrides pessimism about purchase activity for their businesses.

Mortgage rates increased slightly for the second consecutive week, buoyed early on by positive economic news such as the jobs report that came out last Friday, according to Freddie Mac.

The Federal Housing Administration's move to insure loans with forbearance could help support homeownership opportunities constrained by the coronavirus if one change was made to it, trade groups said.

Barclays Commercial Mortgage Securities Mortgage Trust 2020-C7 is backed by a pool of 49 fixed-rate loans collateralized by 153 commercial properties – of which 17 loans are tied to multifamily/manufactured housing properties representing 35.4% of the pool balance.

Some lawmakers fear that when forbearance plans and enhanced unemployment coverage expire, the consequences for mortgage borrowers still affected by the pandemic will be severe.

If delinquency rates rise, all four stand-alone firms would have a capital shortfall.

The FHFA’s proposal is intended to strengthen Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but many experts warn that it could boost guarantee fees for lenders that they say may be passed on to borrowers.

About 9% of government-insured loans in forbearance have low equity, which could hamper post-forbearance servicing.

But there was an increase in private-label mortgages in forbearance.

One criticism of the CARES Act is that it provides relief only to borrowers with government-backed loans. Bills in New York and California would cover the remaining 30% of homeowners.

The policy comes more than a month after a different agency issued similar guidance for loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seeks to address challenged posed by the sunset of the London interbank offered rate at the end of 2021.

The new FHFA rule sets a percentage-based threshold to measure compliance, rather than Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.

The FHFA looks to shed light on the amount of funds Fannie and Freddie will need to hold for their risk-sharing deals.

With no way of knowing just how many borrowers will need the mods after the coronavirus forbearance period ends, lenders are deploying artificial intelligence and servicing protocols to tame the ferocious piles of paperwork awaiting them.

Aggregate numbers for coronavirus-related payment suspensions are showing more consistency as organizations clarify how they handle them, and some consumers' incentives to use them may be declining.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have different timelines for the switch.

The coronavirus made it particularly tough for independent contractors and independent business owners to get home mortgages, but there are some signs that market may recover soon.

Mortgage applications increased 2.7% from one week earlier, as purchase volume is now outpacing the prior year's activity, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Forecasts about the pandemic's impact on the mortgage market have grown less dire after forbearance requests by homeowners nearly leveled off in the first half of May.