National MI turned heads yesterday by announcing its temporary increase to AUS conforming loan amounts, despite the official FHFA word not coming until the end of November. (More below on the amounts.) Our biz is filled with “numbers people,” good or bad. According to Curinos, September 2023 funded mortgage volume decreased 30 percent YoY and 14 percent MoM. The average 30-year conforming retail funded rate in September was 7.01 percent, 18bps higher than August and 146bps higher than the same month last year. (Curinos sources a statistically significant data set directly from lenders to produce these benchmark figures.) Inventory and sales aren’t helping. Economist Dr. Elliot Eisenberg summed things up. “August data showed MoM housing starts down 11.3 percent to their lowest level since 6/20, the NAHB housing index down sharply M-o-M for the second month in a row, and new home sales weakening 8.7 percent MoM, the biggest decline since 9/22. Existing housing
Farmers Bank's Santiago Earns ABA Emerging Leader Award - Business Journal Daily | The Youngstown Publishing Company businessjournaldaily.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from businessjournaldaily.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
One in five Americans now has medical debt in collections, and rising health care costs today threaten every small business in America. Marty Makary, MD, MPH, a New York Times bestselling author and a gastrointestinal surgeon at Johns Hopkins, challenges the medical establishment to remember medicine's noble heritage of caring for people when they are vulnerable. Although the system is broken, he says, the silver lining is that there are some innovative solutions that we can pursue today.
Today I head to Phoenix area for the AzAMP annual conference, and am reminded that, “Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.” The mortgage industry is constantly changing, although Freddie and Fannie have been a somewhat stabilizing influence. But explaining to someone not in the mortgage business what they, the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) do, is not easy, but in another one of his Mortgage Musings, attorney Brian Levy offers his thoughts on 15 years of being in conservatorship and whether that means it’s time to drop the “S” in GSE. Let’s just hope they don’t become another Amtrak. (Sign up for Musings here.) One topic that has come up at a few conferences, besides Agency buybacks, is demand for “LIP” and “VLIP” borrowers. Are F&F pushing hard for Low Income Purchase and Very Low Income Purchase business, and requesting high percentages of those products with the “t