Editor’s Note: The Mortgage Mix is RISMedia’s weekly highlight reel of need-to-know mortgage-industry happenings. Watch for it each Friday.
–Mortgage rates continued to fall steadily after big drops in November, hovering around 6.3%, according to the latest data from Freddie Mac.
-Across the industry, non-bank employment has fallen almost to pre-pandemic levels, according to National Mortgage News, with those payrolls sinking to where they were in October 2020 shortly after the market began heating up.
-New York-based fintech startup Python, which aims to provide end-to-end mortgage tools for existing platforms, received $8.5 million in seed funding from some big names, including Zillow, SoFi and controversial billionaire Peter Thiel.
-Bring out the safety car! Atlanta-based mortgage firm Equity Prime Mortgage may be out of the race as the company is being sued for failing to make payments on a $6 million NASCAR sponsorship detail, according to National Mortgage News.
–Canada’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points, though policymakers in the Great White North appear to be in line with their Southern neighbor, saying they will “be considering whether the policy interest rate needs to rise further.”
-Consumers who picked up loans this year might currently feel like they boarded the Titanic, as 60% of all mortgages that are currently underwater were originated in the first three quarters of 2022, according to the latest data from Black Knight. Despite this overall negative equity, rates “continue to run far below historical averages,” the mortgage researcher added.
