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.
- Mortgage rates in August have hit a 10-month low; the latest 30-year-fixed mortgage rate was 6.58%, per the latest weekly report from Freddie Mac. These rates have spurred an increase in mortgage and mortgage refinancing applications.
- Regional Vice President of William Raveis Mortgage Melissa Cohn said in an emailed response from PR firm Derring-Do Inc. that she doesn’t consider mortgage rates to have “plunged” yet, and predicts this will come at some point in the next two years. “If we continue to see weaker data, no matter what the Fed does, bond yields will continue to drop and mortgage rates will drop — but they haven’t plunged yet,” said Cohn.
- It has been reported that President Donald J. Trump and his administration are considering an initial public offering (IPO) for stock in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The IPO could generate $30 billion, which would be the largest IPO in history. The administration has maintained its goal of ending the conservatorship that the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) have been in since the 2008 financial crisis. Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte said that the conservatorship, and the government’s explicit guarantee, will remain in place but pieces of the GSEs will be made public. If the GSEs were privatized without the government’s explicit guarantee, it could bring mortgage rates up due to greater market risk.
- United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) reported a strong Quarter 2 performance at its latest earnings call, moving from a net loss the previous quarter to net income and with higher loan origination. CEO Mat Ishbia highlighted UWM’s AI products, such as MIA, an AI virtual assistant for mortgage professionals such as loan officers.
- The MBA passed a resolution on Wednesday, August 6, 2025 calling for the GSEs to end a requirement for tri-merge credit reports (or a report that combines information from all three major credit bureaus) for a GSE loan. MBA President and CEO Bob Broeksmit released a video outlining the association’s efforts on this front, claiming ending the requirement will reduce credit reporting costs and redundancies, and calling Pulte an “ally” in the effort.
- The Senate has passed a finalized version of a bill restricting Trigger Leads, or credit bureaus selling information to lenders about consumers looking for a loan. The bill now heads to the President’s desk for signage or a veto. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) has been a proponent of restricting trigger leads and praised the Senate’s passage of the bill.
- On August 6, a federal judge gave permission for a class-action lawsuit against mortgage servicer Mr. Cooper to move ahead. Mr. Cooper suffered a cyberattack in 2023, which saw the personal data (including social security numbers) of 14 million current or former customers be compromised. Mr. Cooper, which claims to be the largest American mortgage servicer, is currently being acquired by Rocket Companies.
- Two civil lawsuits have been filed against Fannie Mae by 41 dismissed employees; the employees claim their firings on April 2, 2025 constitute nationwide defamation. FHFA Director Pulte is named in the lawsuits as a defendant, as is Fannie Mae’s President and CEO Priscilla Almodovar.
- Union Home Mortgage (UHM) is suing a Georgia-based couple for allegedly violating a noncompete agreement with the company and taking “confidential information” to a new employer. The lender has previously sued other former employees on similar grounds.
