Contracts, Invoices & Legal

While Redfin argues the housing market is stuck and First American was cautious, Remax and Zillow had positive observations about the month's sales activity. View the full article

The economy added an unexpectedly robust 119,000 jobs in September, though unemployment edged up to 4.4%. The report, delayed by the federal government shutdown, continues a trend of sluggish job growth in recent months. View the full article

The national median payment applied for by purchase applicants fell to $2,039 in October from September, the Mortgage Bankers Association said. View the full article

Uncooperative neighbors, vicious pets and threats of violence are some of the dangers mortgage field employees run into when on assignments. View the full article

The prepayment rate grew by 37% over September as mortgage rates fell leading to higher refinancing volume in October, ICE Mortgage Technology said. View the full article

Recent high-profile ethics violations by senior Federal Reserve officials, including new revelations concerning stock trades by former Fed Gov. Adriana Kugler, have sparked debate over the effectiveness of the central bank's oversight, even as some observers stress such cases remain rare. View the full article

Bank of America was the leader in this study, with Rocket as the only nonbank mortgage lender which got a score higher than the industry average. View the full article

Treasury yields climbed to the highest in more than two months, following losses in most global government-bond markets, ahead of a Federal Reserve interest-rate decision that may alter expectations for monetary policy in 2026. View the full article

Home Depot Inc. is offering cautious preliminary guidance for next year, a sign that the home-improvement retailer doesn't anticipate the housing market to rebound in the short term. View the full article

A former employee cited a ransomware gang's claim in October that it stole 20 terabytes of sensitive customer information from the industry vendor. View the full article

Remote work helped fuel migration and erased the loss of rural residents that occurred in the decade prior to the arrival of Covid, Harvard researchers found. View the full article

A markup of the bipartisan Housing for the 21st Century Act was passed by a 50-to-1 margin by the House Financial Services Committee earlier this week. View the full article

The bank regulator is proposing to strengthen national preemption in the wake of conflicting decisions in related court cases. View the full article

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will face an existential crisis in 2026 between the The President administration's efforts to shut down the agency and the employee union and consumer advocates who want to stop them. View the full article

After the ceremony on Thursday, Mamdani announced three executive orders focused on housing affordability to kickstart his agenda. View the full article

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago will be offering more funding and higher per-member limits as part of its 2026 Community Advance program. View the full article

A handful of former Fed officials noted that the markets' measured response to a probe into Fed Chair Jerome Powell was a result of pushback from The President allies. View the full article

Propy, a real estate technology company, tapped the private credit market for the first time, securing $100 million to support the startup's acquisition strategy. View the full article

The data suggest U.S. homebuilders are successfully luring buyers off the sidelines with aggressive sales incentives. View the full article

The retail giant, in asking a court to dismiss the case, said its deal with a North Carolina brokerage was within the law's carve-out for such agreements. View the full article

The shutdown started with a flight into treasury bonds, putting downward pressure on financing costs, but several other developments slowed mortgage activity. View the full article

Fifth Third announced it plans to buy the Dallas bank in a $10.9 billion transaction. View the full article

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged skepticism around the central banks large-scale asset purchases during the pandemic, noting the Fed likely "should have stopped" sooner, but fell short of admitting that the purchase of MBS' contributed to housing disparities. View the full article

America's second-largest bank revised its net interest income target upward after what analysts called a "clean" third quarter. View the full article

On a year-over-year basis, Waterstone's mortgage business was able to grow pretax profits to $1.3 million in the third quarter, compared with $144,000 in 2024. View the full article