Share Of Women In Construction At An All Time High

The  Senate  passed a $2 trillion federal rescue package that’s expected to be approved quickly by the  House of Representatives  after Republicans agreed to oversight measures including a ban on President Donald Trump or his family receiving funds. The largest-ever stimulus bill in U.S. history includes $250 billion in direct checks to Americans and boosts unemployment benefits to help people pay their bills, including rent or  mortgages , while the nation struggles with the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost half of all Americans live in states that have implemented stay-at-home orders in frantic efforts to stem the spread of the disease. The legislation, passed with a unanimous vote just before midnight on Wednesday, also includes $100 billion in grants for hospitals dealing with shortages of protective equipment as they care for a deluge of people sickened by the highly contagious COVID-19. It also provides $16 billion to stockpile medical equipment and $150 bil...

With the coronavirus continuing to wreak havoc across the country, the nation’s two largest sources of mortgage funding are taking additional steps to address issues that currently exist within the lending process. Fannie Mae  and  Freddie Mac  announced Tuesday that they are tightening some lending standards while also beginning to offer several “loan processing flexibilities.” Several of the changes announced by the GSEs address potential concerns surrounding proof of income and assets, two things that can, unfortunately, change rather quickly for some borrowers right now. According to both of the GSEs, they are changing the age of document requirements for most income and asset documentation from four months to two months. What that means is all income and asset documentation must be dated no more than 60 days from the date of the mortgage note. Previously, that window was 120 days. In Fannie Mae’s announcement, it states that the change is being made “in or...

The coronavirus crisis and the subsequent national shutdown has already impacted employment in ways never seen before, but it’s likely that things will get worse before they get better. The most recent data from the  Department of Labor  showed  that 3.28 million people filed for unemployment in the week ending March 21, 2020. That figure absolutely shattered the previous weekly high of 695,000 initial jobless claims, which was set in 1982. Data like that is why  Goldman Sachs  economists now say the unemployment rate could climb to a record 15% this year. That’s an increase from the 9% unemployment those same economists were predicting earlier this month, and a far cry from their February  prediction  that unemployment would fall to a 67-year low this year. As the virus’ reach and impact have deepened over the last few weeks, Goldman Sachs economists predict unemployment will skyrocket from the 3.5% where it stood in February. “These foreca...

Pending home sales in February rose 2.4% from the prior month, the second consecutive increase, according to a report Tuesday from the  National Association of Realtors . February’s reading shows the health of the housing market prior to the  coronavirus-induced shutdown , said Lawerence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. According to Yun, February’s data does not capture the significant fallout from the pandemic, or the measures taken to control the outbreak. “Numbers in the coming weeks will show just how hard the housing market was hit, but I am optimistic that the upcoming stimulus package will lessen the  economic damage  and we may get a V-shaped robust recovery later in the year,” Yun said. The COVID-19 pandemic likely will result in   houses sitting on the market for longer periods as Americans are ordered to stay at home, he said. “Housing, just like most other industries, suffered from the coronavirus crisis, but once this predicamen...

The average U.S. fixed rate for a 30-year mortgage fell to 3.5% this week, representing the first decline in three weeks, according to  Freddie Mac . The rate is 15 basis points below  last week’s level  of 3.65% and is more than half a percentage point lower than the 4.06% of the same week a year ago. In addition to a drop in the 30-year fixed-rate, the 15-year fixed rate averaged 2.92%, down from 3.06% last week. However, the five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 3.34%, up from last week’s rate of 3.11%.  The  Federal Reserve’s efforts to stabilize markets  with a pledge of unlimited bond-buying, including mortgage-backed securities, likely caused this week’s rate decline, said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “The Federal Reserve’s swift and significant efforts to stabilize the market were much needed and helped  mortgage rates  drop for the first time in three weeks,” Khater said. “Sim...

When  Goldman Sachs  recently predicted that 2.25 million people would file for unemployment last week, it made headlines nationwide (including here on  HousingWire ). That figure would have obliterated the previous weekly record that has stood since 1982. But the actual figure is far, far worse than Goldman Sachs predicted. According to the  Department of Labor , nearly 3.3 million people filed for unemployment in the week ending March 21, 2020, an increase of more than 3 million from the week before (282,000 to 3.28 million). That figure shatters the previous weekly record of 695,000 initial jobless claims, which was set in 1982, and it’s a clear indication of just how bad things are for millions of people around the country. The Labor Department report puts it succinctly: “This marks the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the seasonally adjusted series.”

As more people are urged to stay home due to the coronavirus, many are still proving that they are interested in purchasing a home. Although many real estate companies have paused home showings, the desire for digital home showings have risen rapidly. In a new report from  Redfin , the  brokerage said  it saw a 494% increase in requests for agent-led video home tours last week alone. As of Sunday, 18.9% of its tour requests from Redfin.com were video-chat tour requests, which was up from 0.2% at the beginning of March, a 94-fold increase, the company said. “The future of real estate has come earlier than any of us could have anticipated,” Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman said in a statement. “The way things are during the pandemic won’t last forever, but at the end of all this, things won’t go back to the way they were either. We hope we’re well prepared.” Redfin announced last week that it would be  suspending open houses  and would move to a virtual home showi...