Mortgage rates fall for a seventh consecutive week

🕰 Happy Friday to you loyal readers! Today’s newsletter is a quick 2.5-minute read.

1. Mortgage rates fall for a seventh consecutive week

Mortgage rates continue falling, this week seeing their lowest weekly drop since September, Freddie Mac reported, providing incentives for both purchase and refinance activity as the spring market approaches.

According to Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.63% this week, down from last week’s 6.76%. A year ago at this time, the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 6.88%.

The 15-year FRM averaged 5.79%, down from last week when it averaged 5.94%. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 6.22%.

2. UHM sues 9 ex-employees for non-compete breach

Union Home Mortgage (UHM) is suing nine former employees on claims they breached several agreements, including non-compete agreements.

The Feb. 17 complaint, which is filed at the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, explains that eight managers and one loan officer, based on the East Coast, all transitioned to American Pacific Mortgage (APM) after being employed at UHM despite being bound by non-compete clauses, which prevented them from working for a competitor for a restricted period.

The departure began when Craig Franczak, Union Home's regional manager, resigned in January 2025 to join APM, breaching a non-solicitation clause. Eight employees followed. Union Home is also seeking the return of sign-on bonuses.

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3. More Nuggets

📈 Loan officers are seeing an uptick in FHA, VA demand. (HousingWire)

🚦 Exclusive: Fannie Mae’s blacklist of real estate players revealed. (The Real Deal)

🏢 CFPB allowing some offices to resume functions. (The Hill)

🧑‍⚖️ Keller Williams legal battle with ex-CEO turns even uglier. (inman)

🪪 TransUnion, Truework add mortgages to income verification tool. (TransUnion)

4. Charted: The highest mortgage rate homeowners say they'd accept on their next home purchase

According to a survey by ResiClub, just over half of homeowners (54%) said they’d accept a mortgage rate up to 5.50% on their next purchase.

5. VA to cancel 585 ‘non-mission critical’ contracts

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) continues to clean house, announcing the termination of 585 contracts it said will help redirect more than $900 million to healthcare, benefits and services for veterans.

The VA said its cuts are the “first step” in an audit of the roughly 90,000 contracts it currently has in place—a process its announcement stressed is being conducted with in-house expertise and feedback.

Those eliminated were among almost 2,000 professional services contracts reviewed so far and represent “non-mission-critical or duplicative” roles. Affected contracts included staff mentoring, leadership coaching, executive support and other administrative services “that VA can perform on its own,” the department said.

☀️ You’re all caught up. See you on Monday!

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