There are 3 things that tell the truth: small children, drunk people, and yoga pants. HMDA data is close behind. Warning: sobering thoughts ahead, and not only the headlines about credit scores and mortgage pricing, officials trying to devise a plan for First Republic’s future, or two 80-year old white men posturing about the country’s future. Residential lenders at the recent MBA STRATMOR Peer Group meeting in Atlanta were looking at units, and I asked the MBA’s Joel Kan about some stats on fundings per year: 13.7 million in 2020, 14.2 million in 2021, 6.4 million in 2022 (awaiting final HMDA data in June), and 5.0 million forecast for 2023. That puts 2023’s fundings at about 1/3 of 2021’s. Forget overall volume numbers, since the loan sizes have moved higher… Have you reduced your expectations and staff, both in ops and production, to match a 66 percent decline in units? Or do you expect to grab market share through superior products, pricing
California, home of nearly 25 percent of home loans, is doing some interesting things, utility-wise. Last year came AB 205 which instructs the state’s utility commission to base the residential fixed charge on a customer’s household income level, with lower income households paying less than higher income households for grid and other costs. PG&E, along with Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, have submitted a joint plan to levy an income-based fixed rate model, with higher-income residents paying higher rates while lower-income households would pay less. I mention this because, at the national level in mortgage banking, borrowers see headlines like, “Biden rule will redistribute high-risk loan costs to homeowners with good credit.” Regardless of one’s political affiliation, a new housing report by the National Association of Realtors® reveals middle-income homeowners accumulated $122,100 in wealth
Merry 420, which coincidentally was the yield on the 2-year Treasury note early today. Data and lawsuits about data… What’s in your wallet? Or maybe I should say, “Who’s in your wallet?” A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) employee (sent) confidential consumer data on roughly 256,000 people to their personal email account in what the agency described as a “major incident.” The data, which the CFPB says the former employee had authorized access to, included personally identifiable information, such as names and transaction-specific account numbers, of consumers of seven institutions.” As industry vet Brian B. asks, “Didn’t Richard Cordray assure us that personal information isn’t handled by the CFPB?” Speaking of big data, Big Brother, and privacy, if you’re a Facebook member, there’s a class action lawsuit entitling people to a “piece of the pie.” (If you just want
NAR's Lawrence Yun among prominent figures scheduled to speak at seminar where Momentifi CEO and U.S. presidential candidate Gibran Nicholas will hawk his book.
A friend of mine who lives in her own unit in a mobile home park was telling me that her rent is about to go up by a huge amount, and said that, “That Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are behind it.” Correct or not, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae don’t need this kind of publicity and the public to have that impression, but sure enough, a quick news search turns up: “'Trapped': How Federally Backed Financing is Making Mobile Homes Less Affordable.” The world has always had its population broken down in different classes. The average income for middle-class Americans has risen from $74,000 in 2010 to $90,000 today. But to have the same effective income as $74,000 in 2010, you’d need to make roughly $101,000 in 2022. Going back in our nation’s history, privates who were paid in the Continental army earned about $6.70 a month. I mention this because today, in New England, is Patriot’s Day. The Boston Red Sox play a home game at