housing wire

As HousingWire reported earlier this year, 2021 will be a year of heightened M&A activity — and not just for mortgage lenders and originators. As the refinance wave gives way to a purchase market, consolidation is already upon us – even

Blend Labs filed a confidential registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, signaling its intent to enter the public markets. The dropping of the S-1 closely follows the mortgage tech firm’s big venture capital raise in January,

Housing starts jumped in March, recovering from a bleak February that included wild winter storms in the South, according to a recent report from the Census Bureau. Single-family housing starts rose 15.3% over the month to a pace of 1.24

There’s no denying shopping for a home is time-consuming. You have to pay attention to everything – the neighborhood, floorplan, proximity to work, school district and cost. Even if you plan to live in the home for years, you want

In 2020, housing was an economic bright spot for a nation shuttered inside. Globally speaking, things look much different roughly a year later –  jobs are returning by the millions, a series of viable vaccines are being deployed across America,

Another 2 million borrowers could save an average of nearly $300 a month on a refinance thanks to last week’s 10-basis-point drop in mortgage rates. Recent data from Black Knight found the number of high-quality refi candidates moved back up

Consumers have been closely following President Joe Biden’s proposed first-time homebuyer tax credit, but the latest legislative effort to assist homebuyers differs in several significant ways. The newest draft of a down-payment assistance bill would provide $25,000 to first-time homebuyers,

Data analytics giant Black Knight and digital mortgage vendor platform Stavvy are the latest companies to officially receive the Remote Online Notarization (RON) compliance certification through the Mortgage Industry Standard Maintenance Organization (MISMO). Their initiation marks the ninth and 10th companies to

HousingWire’s fourth-annual Engage Marketing event will feature experts focused on the specifics of mortgage and real estate in a purchase market. While appetite for refinance loans will plunge in the second half of the year, a huge demographic wave of

The Hudson Valley of New York has gone from a dream retirement location to a housing hot spot for those leaving New York City. In Kingston, a city on the Hudson River two hours north of Manhattan, homes are being

In modern history, the housing market has never seen a month like March. Record demand and the lowest levels of inventory on record pushed sales prices to record highs in March and made life very complicated for buyers, real estate

Builder confidence rose one point to 83 for newly built single-family homes in April, according to the latest National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) report. Builder confidence has not risen above 84 so

Gino Blefari, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices of America CEO and chairman Gino Blefari is a pretty colorful character. The Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices of America CEO and chairman of Berkshire’s franchise network, HSF Affiliates, calls money “dough,” and is fond of tangents

The average U.S. mortgage rate fell for the second consecutive week, down nine basis points to 3.04%, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. Despite rates mirroring mid-march levels, Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, doesn’t expect them to hold. “The

RoundPoint Mortgage has added three new senior executives to its management team, as it prepares to ramp up its retail operations. The mortgage subservicer’s board of directors appointed Patrick McEnerney as chief executive officer. McEnerney was a managing director at

When COVID-19 first rocked the U.S. economy in March 2020, mortgage lenders had to be nimble in a variety of areas. Mortgage interest rates hit record lows and origination volume surged. At the same time, a number of individuals were

Homeowners are spending money to battle the effects of weather and climate change on their properties, a new Redfin survey showed, with some allocating more than $5,000 to protect against events like extreme temperatures and flooding. Approximately 60% of 1,200

The push to further digitize the mortgage process gained added traction amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with lockdowns forcing the mortgage industry to adopt new technologies it has otherwise been slow to embrace. Remote Online Notarizations form part of that digital

By the time Homepoint is done, there may not be anyone left in the corner offices at Fannie Mae. The wholesale mortgage originator and servicer announced Wednesday that it had hired yet another longtime mortgage executive at Fannie Mae, its

Last year, the market’s wish for record-setting volume was granted – but at a cost. The only way to capture that volume was to hire, hire and then hire some more. Outsourcers were at capacity and talent pools quickly drained. 

JPMorgan Chase increased originations by 21% over the fourth quarter of 2020, but compressed margins ate away at the bank’s mortgage profits in the first quarter of 2021. The New York-headquartered bank originated $39.3 billion in home loans during the

Acquisitions-hungry New Residential Investment Corp. (NewRez) has agreed to acquire multichannel lender Caliber Home Loans in a deal valued at $1.675 billion, the firms announced on Wednesday. The agreement with NewRez, a publicly traded mortgage REIT, comes roughly six months

Non-QM lender Sprout Mortgage has brought on Infosys‘s chief information officer and global director of real estate finance solutions, Henry Santos, as its own CIO and executive vice president, the company announced Tuesday. Santos had served at Infosys for two

Mortgage applications declined for the week ending April 9, according to the latest report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. It’s the sixth consecutive week of falling mortgage applications. Applications were down 3.7% from the week ending April 2, with rising