Mortgage
Rates, refinancing, and first-time buyer strategy, explained the way we'd want it explained to a friend buying their first place.
Mortgage articles
The 30-Year Mortgage Hit a Three-Year High and Borrowers Shifted Into Adjustable Rates
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose 25 basis points to 7.28 percent, its highest level since November 2023, and the weekly applications survey shows demand moving toward adjustable-rate loans rather than out of the market.
Five Mortgage Data Suits Were Filed While the Notification Clock Was Still Running
A ransomware gang says it took 2.5 terabytes from a Maryland mortgage lender. Five federal suits were filed while the notification deadlines that bind the lender were still open.
The 30-Year Mortgage Jumped to 6.95 Percent in the Week the Fed Hiked
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose 19 basis points this week to 6.95 percent, the market's fast repricing after the Federal Reserve's first hike in three years, and buyers are now credit-checked against the new level.
Denmark Opened Its First 5 Percent Mortgage Since 2023, and the Fed Hike Helped Push It Open
Jyske Realkredit opened a 5 percent fixed-rate mortgage for the first time since December 2023 as rising oil prices, inflation expectations, and U.S. rates pushed the long-running 4 percent loan toward closure.
The Mortgage Industry Sues New Jersey Over the Country's Broadest Lending Rule
The Mortgage Bankers Association is asking a federal court to strike down New Jersey's disparate impact regulations, arguing the rule forces lenders into race-conscious decision-making that federal fair lending law forbids.
Europe's Energy Shock Is Landing on Mortgage Bills
Euribor posted its biggest one-day jump in six months this week, and in Portugal, where most home loans track it directly, monthly payments are set to rise between 25 and 80 euros at the next review.
The FHA Will Accept New Credit Scores in 2027, and the Mortgage Math Is Changing
FHA-insured loans will accept VantageScore 4.0 and FICO 10T starting January 1, 2027, a quiet shift that could reshape who qualifies for a government-backed mortgage and how lenders price risk.
The Credit Score Monopoly Just Changed Hands
The FHFA ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to accept VantageScore from every lender, ending FICO's regulatory lock. The pilot already showed the real constraint was never permission.
California Is Building a Second Fair-Lending Regulator
With federal fair-lending enforcement in retreat, a bill on Governor Newsom's desk would give California examiners their own four-year inspection cycle over mortgage lenders.
One in Ten Mortgages Now Sits Outside the Qualified Mortgage Box
Non-QM lending reached $239 billion in 2025, a tenth of all US originations, and the fastest growth comes from self-employed borrowers and investors the rules never learned to see.
Senior Housing Keeps Losing to the Quiet Streets Seniors Want
Retirement communities across the country are stalling in fights with organized opposition from seniors themselves. The single-family stock that lets an older homeowner age in place is the same stock zoning rules keep anything else from joining.
The Home Loan Banks Get Paid First When a Member Bank Fails
The Federal Home Loan Bank System has never taken a credit loss in 94 years. That record reflects where it stands in the repayment line, not how well it underwrites, and the losses did not disappear.
Why Your Condo Dues Are Rising, and Why the Cost Was Always There
The median condo fee is up 29% since 2019, and special assessments are hitting some owners for over $100,000. The rising dues are not a new cost. They're a decades-old cost, deferred through underfunded reserves, finally coming due after the Surfside collapse forced a reckoning.
An HOA Can Take Your Home Over a Few Hundred Dollars. The Debt That Does It Is Mostly the Cost of Collecting It.
HOA foreclosure filings are up nearly 40% in two years. The disproportion between a trivial trigger debt and a home-destroying consequence isn't an accident, it's built into a fee-collection machinery that rewards the lawyers who escalate it.
The Fear Is That AI Disrupts Financial-Data Giants. ICE's Bet Is That AI Commoditizes the Model, Not Its Moat.
ICE Mortgage Technology returned to profitability and argued its data and workflow, not its models, are what AI cannot replicate. The bet is stronger in regulated mortgage than in most industries, but it is still a bet.
The Second-Lien Boom Isn't Just About Locked-In Homeowners. It's About Who Ends Up Holding the Risk.
Second-lien and HELOC securitization is on pace for $41 billion in 2026, the most since the financial crisis. The record issuance isn't just a symptom of demand, it's the engine that distributes subordinate mortgage risk to bond investors.
Fannie and Freddie Are Pausing Fewer Payments and Permanently Rewriting More Loans. The Tool They Choose Is a Diagnosis.
FHFA data shows GSE loan modifications rising while forbearance and payment deferrals fall, just ahead of a policy shift to shorter forbearance windows. The tool mix is itself a diagnosis of whether borrower distress is temporary or permanent.
Second Mortgages Are Booming at the Fastest Pace Since 2008. This Time the Cause Is the Opposite of Recklessness.
The volume echoes the financial crisis. The behavior underneath it, homeowners protecting a cheap first mortgage, is close to the opposite.
Most Ways to Get a Sub-6% Mortgage Don't Lower Your Cost. They Move It.
Discount points, buydowns, and ARMs mostly relocate cost rather than reduce it. Only lender competition, assumption, and shorter terms are genuinely cheaper.
The Borrowers Most Likely to Overpay for a Mortgage Are the Ones With the Best Credit
An analysis of 3.2 million originations found 87% of borrowers pay more than they had to, and the worst offenders are the ones with the strongest profiles.
The CFPB Is Reconsidering the Mortgage Disclosure Rules. The Real Question Is Bright Lines vs. Judgment Calls.
A new request for information asks whether TRID's waiting periods and cost tolerances should be replaced with a "materiality" standard.
The New Bank Capital Rules Are a Bid to Take Mortgage Lending Back From Nonbanks
Regulators scrapped the 2023 Basel endgame and proposed cutting bank capital requirements by roughly 8.6%, aimed at pulling mortgage lending back from nonbanks.
Foreclosures Are "Returning to Normal." That Average Is Hiding a Real Crisis Underneath.
Filings jumped 20%, and that's just normalization on average. FHA delinquencies hit 11.52%, the highest since 2012.
Mortgage Rates Just Hit a New High. The Danger Isn't a Spike, It's a Quarter Point.
A drift to 6.4% sounds trivial. Near the qualification line, a quarter point moves millions of households in or out.
Why Mortgage Moguls Keep Buying Sports Teams. The Detroit Soccer Deal Explains It.
Jay Farner's Detroit City FC investment is a real-estate deal, a Rocket-UWM rivalry move, and a pattern, wearing a jersey.
Housing Starts "Surged" 19% in June. Almost None of It Was the Housing Most People Buy.
Strip out multifamily and single-family building fell for a third straight month, with permits at cycle lows.
A Mortgage CEO Just Explained Why the Industry Is Consolidating. It's Not a Growth Story.
Union Home's CEO calls it plainly: too many lenders chasing too few loans, at margins so thin the weak have to sell.
FHFA Wants to Stop Blacklisting Mortgage Firms Over "Reputational Harm." Here's Why That Cuts Both Ways.
The agency that can end a mortgage company overnight is narrowing the grounds for doing it. That helps firms, but it collides with anti-money-laundering rules.
The Summer Housing Market Is "Battle-Tested." Look at Who's Still Standing.
June rate-locks jumped 15%, and 81% were purchases. But the growth is migrating toward jumbo loans and high-cost markets.
Fannie Mae Just Told the Mortgage Industry to Stop Waiting for Rate Cuts
6.3% through 2027, no Fed cut, and a real chance of a hike first. The escape hatch buyers were waiting for just closed.
Gen Z Is Buying Homes at a Record Rate. Look at How They're Paying for Them.
Gen Z hit a record 20% of purchase mortgages, relying on FHA loans, family cash, and boomer parents draining retirement accounts.
Big Banks' Mortgage Volume Jumped 30% in Q2. The One Margin Number We Can See Fell Off a Cliff.
Chase's gain-on-sale margin, the only one still disclosed, dropped 45 basis points even as volume surged.
Douglas Elliman Says It's Becoming a Tech Company. Read the Balance Sheet First.
The luxury brokerage's stock is down 17% this year and it just posted a $16 million quarterly loss.
Home Prices Are Still Rising in 2026. Adjusted for Inflation, They're Falling.
Forecasters just cut 2026 home price growth to around 1%, while inflation runs above 3%. Real housing wealth is falling for the first time in years.
Mid-Atlantic Home Sales Are Rising in 2026. The Buyers Who Can Afford Them Are Vanishing.
Sales climbed 7.3% in June, but the same report shows moderate-income and first-time buyers are increasingly shut out.