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- Pending home sales rise for the third straight month
Pending home sales rise for the third straight month
Plus: Musk calls for end to CFPB
👋 Welcome back, we hope you enjoyed your holiday and a delicious meal. Today's newsletter is 617 words, a 2.5-minute read. Let’s dive in…
Disclaimer: Average mortgage rates as of Nov 29, 2024. © MND Daily Rate Index.
1. Home purchase applications rise
According to the MBA, mortgage application activity picked up for the third week in a row, driven in part by a pullback in interest rates.
The MBA's Market Composite Index, a measure of weekly application activity, jumped a seasonally adjusted 6.3% for the seven days ending Nov. 22. Compared against the same period in 2023 when Thanksgiving arrived a week earlier, application volumes surged 18.1%.
"Purchase activity drove overall applications higher last week, as conventional purchase applications picked up pace, and mortgage rates declined for the first time in over two months"
2. Musk calls for end to CFPB
Elon Musk said Wednesday that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should be abolished, calling for the elimination of an agency that would potentially regulate the future payments business of the Musk-owned X platform.
“Delete CFPB,” Musk, who is leading an effort on behalf of President-elect Donald Trump to shrink the size of the federal government, wrote in a post on X. “There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies.”
Trump on the campaign trail called for easing regulation of the financial industry generally but didn’t explicitly call for the elimination of the CFPB, which Republicans have railed against for years.
3. More Nuggets
🏘️ 4 predictions for the housing market in 2025, according to Zillow. (BusinessInsider)
⚖️ ‘The DOJ is coming for NAR’: What’s next after the $418M settlement? (HW)
🏡 Starter homes are shrinking in size, but not in price, new data confirms. (Fortune)
4. Pending home sales rise for the third straight month
Contract signings rose 2% from the previous month, according to the monthly index released by the NAR. The index is at its highest level since March.
"Home-buying momentum is building after nearly two years of suppressed home sales. Even with mortgage rates modestly rising despite the Federal Reserve's decision to cut the short-term interbank lending rate in September, continuous job additions and more housing inventory are bringing more consumers to the market"
Pending home sales reflect transactions where the contract has been signed for the sale of an existing home, but the sale has not yet closed. Economists view the figure as an indicator of the direction of existing-home sales in subsequent months.
5. UWM drops LLPAs on most government loans
United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) has removed all loan-level pricing adjustments (LLPAs) on FHA, VA, and USDA loans for borrowers with a FICO score of 600 or higher, effective until March 31, 2025.
According to UWM, its initiative aims to improve pricing by up to 150 basis points for borrowers typically impacted by the highest LLPAs. It also aims to provide “brokers with a competitive edge, allowing borrowers to increase their buying power, find it easier to purchase a property or lower their interest rate.”
Government-backed loans now make up an increasing share of UWM’s portfolio. The company originated $39.5 billion in mortgages in the third quarter, up from $33.6 billion in the second quarter and $29.7 billion in Q3 2023.
☀️ You’re all caught up. See you on Wednesday!
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