Editor’s Note: The Mortgage Mix is RISMedia’s weekly highlight reel of need-to-know mortgage-industry happenings. Watch for it each Friday afternoon.
- The Federal Housing Administration will be lowering mortgage insurance premiums (MIPs) by 30 basis points, from 0.85% to 0.55%, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced in conjunction with Vice President Kamala Harris. The National Association of REALTORS® voiced their support following the announcement, noting that the “move strikes the right balance of affordability and fiscal responsibility.”
- Mortgage applications decreased 13.3% from one week earlier, the third decrease in as many weeks, according to the latest Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Joel Kan, MBA’s vice president and deputy chief economist, said that “This time of the year is typically when purchase activity ramps up, but over the past two weeks, rates have increased significantly as financial markets digest data on inflation cooling at a slower pace than expected.”
- Mortgage rates, after seeing some decreases a few weeks back, continued to increase for the third straight week, according to the latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey from Freddie Mac. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.5%, and the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.76%.
- Mutual of Omaha Mortgage has announced the acquisition of the assets of Keller Mortgage LLC, a member of the Keller Williams (KW) family of companies. Keller Mortgage will now be co-owned and operated by the two companies. Terry Connealy, president of Mutual of Omaha Mortgage, said that “This transaction brings together two leaders in the mortgage industry, leveraging the strengths of each to provide outstanding products and services to homebuyers from coast to coast.”
The total amount of loans in forbearance decreased by 6 basis points in January to 0.7%, according to the MBA’s latest monthly Loan Monitoring Survey. “The forbearance rate decreased across all investor types in January, as borrowers continued to recover from pandemic-related hardships,” said Marina Walsh, CMB, MBA’s vice president of Industry Analysis.
