Editor’s Note: The Mortgage Mix is RISMedia’s biweekly highlight reel of need-to-know mortgage-industry happenings. Watch for it every other Friday afternoon.
-Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) nominee Bill Pulte spoke on several topics of interest at his confirmation hearing on Thursday Feb. 27, according to National Mortgage News. Pulte mentioned the conservatorships of the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and how the eventual pull from conservatorship must be “carefully planned.” He also echoed the Trump administration’s sentiment on cutting down on waste, fraud and abuse, hinting toward cuts and rule-changes within the department if he is confirmed. Pulte also spoke favorably of manufactured housing as a solution to limited housing inventory, and said he would work with HUD on this matter.
-Texas-based Mr. Cooper is reducing the number of workers it will transition from Flagstar, after acquiring the company last year. According to the Detroit Free Press, about 400 former Flagstar employees who were previously going to join Mr. Cooper are now being laid off, as the company determined it didn’t need as many of the employees as first anticipated. In the end, about 350 servicing team members and 175 third-party originations team members will join Mr. Cooper from Flagstar.
-Mortgages are up yearly—despite a quarterly decrease—as refinances soar, according to ATTOM’s Q4 2024 U.S. Residential Property Mortgage Origination Report. The report found that 1.64 million mortgages were secured by residential property (1 to 4 units) during Q4, down 3% quarterly but up 14% from a year earlier. Despite continued overall mortgage market challenges, refinance mortgages climbed to 641,918, up from 603,324 in the prior three-month period and by 28.2% from 500,877 in Q4 2023. ATTOM CEO Rob Barber noted that “forces remain in places for lending to remain slow. But the fallback was modest, and the trend should turn back around to some degree over the coming months as the weather warms and home buying heats back up, especially if mortgage rates settle down.”
-Major public lenders reported strong earnings to start the quarter, with both Rocket Companies and United Wholesale Mortgage touting year-over-year revenue growth and loan origination volume. Executives at both companies also expressed cautious optimism looking ahead at 2025, even as economic uncertainty and other headwinds remain a concern for the industry.
-Fannie Mae’s Economic and Strategic Research (ESR) Group has adjusted its expectations for 2025 due to higher than expected readings in inflation as of late, according to the group’s latest monthly commentary. The ESR Group now predicts mortgage rates to end 2025 and 2026 at 6.6% and 6.5%, respectively, which are upward revisions of previous expectations. The group also now expects the CPI to end 2025 at 2.8%, slightly up from the 2.5% it previously predicted. “Going forward, we expect the economy to decelerate slightly as consumer spending slows to a level more consistent with its historical relationship to income. However, ongoing uncertainty around trade policy adds risk to our GDP and inflation outlooks, which may have implications for mortgage rates, although the direction—up or down—would depend on a number of factors,” said Kim Betancourt, Fannie Mae vice president of Multifamily ESR.
-Consumer credit delinquencies have reached their highest level in five years, according to the January CreditGauge from VantageScore. Average credit account balances rose by more than $1,000 compared to December 2024, the most significant month-over-month growth in nearly three years and reaching a five-year high. “The combination of rising mid-to-late-stage credit delinquencies and rising credit balances suggests a growing debt burden that some consumers are increasingly struggling to manage,” said Susan Fahy, executive vice president and chief digital officer at VantageScore. “This is both a short- and long-term trend. Later-stage delinquencies are key because they are an indication that late payments will likely not go away anytime soon.”
-Ginne Mae reported that its mortgage-backed securities (MBS) portfolio outstanding grew to $2.71 trillion as of January 2025, and that it has issued $39.8 billion in total MBS, resulting in a net portfolio growth of $16.7 billion. The organization’s release also noted that it facilitated the pooling and securitization of over 54,000 loans for first-time homebuyers year to date.
