Share Of Women In Construction At An All Time High

t appears the forbearance issue is already much more significant than federal decision-makers thought it would be. Federal Housing Finance Agency  Director Mark Calabria  told HousingWire  last week that his expectation was that approximately 1 million GSE mortgages will be in forbearance by May, but new data from  Black Knight  shows that the number of GSE mortgages in forbearance  already  far exceeds Calabria’s projection. According to Black Knight, nearly 1.4 million borrowers whose mortgages are backed by  Fannie Mae  and  Freddie Mac  are already in forbearance. To ascertain this data, Black Knight reviewed a sample set of loans that represent the majority of the mortgage market and extrapolated that data across the entire mortgage landscape. Black Knight’s data shows that overall, more than 2.9 million mortgages are in forbearance as of April 16. That figure represents 5.5% of all active mortgages. In total, those ...

Just a few days after it  raised its lending standards  to require nearly all purchase mortgage borrowers to have at least 20% down and a 700 FICO score,  JPMorgan Chase  is “temporarily pausing” its home equity line of credit offering. Beginning April 16, Chase will no longer accept new HELOC applications. Customers with existing HELOCs will be able to continue to draw funds on those lines of credit, but the bank is not accepting applications for new HELOCs. In a statement provided to HousingWire, Amy Bonitatibus, chief marketing officer for Chase Home Lending, said that the bank is making the change due to the “uncertainty” currently in the market. “Due to the economic uncertainty, we’re temporarily pausing new applications for home equity lines of credit,” Bonitatibus said. “Customers can still tap into their home’s equity through a cash-out refinance of their existing mortgage.” As Bonitatibus said, the bank will still allow customers to pull equity out ...

Standards for home loans are tightening by the hour as companies like  United Wholesale Mortgage , the nation’s largest wholesale lender, beef up rules to ward off early defaults from people losing jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I get as many as 10 emails a day from companies announcing new overlays – mostly for re-verification of employment,” said Mark Goldman, a loan officer with  C2 Financial  in San Diego. “All the lenders want to make sure borrowers are still working and still have cash flow.” Almost 14 million Americans have  filed for unemployment  in the last two weeks after businesses were closed and workers told to stay at home by states scrambling to reduce the spread of COVID-19. That record number doesn’t include people who lost their jobs and have been unable to get through to overwhelmed state employment offices to make a benefit claim. As lenders tightened standards, an index measuring the availability of mortgage credit in March ...

With the housing industry at large  raising alarms  about mortgage servicers’ desperate need for liquidity as more borrowers are requesting forbearance, the nation’s largest mortgage aggregator is now warning originators that it could force them to buy back loans that go into forbearance. Late last week,  PennyMac , which grew last year into the largest mortgage aggregator in the country, told its correspondent originators that it will not buy any loan that is currently in forbearance. Beyond that, PennyMac also said that it may force originators to buy back a loan that goes into forbearance within 15 days of PennyMac buying it. “Any loan in forbearance or for which forbearance has been requested is not eligible for purchase by PennyMac,” the company said in a note to originators. “Additionally, any loan that is in forbearance or for which forbearance has been requested up to 15 days post purchase by PennyMac may result in a repurchase.” The move by PennyMac is a...

How long the virus survives—and where it thrives The novel coronavirus can survive on surfaces anywhere from hours to days. The latest information is that it can last 24 hours on cardboard, 48 to 72 hours on plastic, and 48 to 72 hours on stainless steel, says  Dr. Reuben Elovitz , internist and CEO at  Private Health Dallas , who cited a recent study from the  New England Journal of Medicine . The duration also depends on a few other factors, like temperature and whether a surface is prone to holding moisture. “Wooden handles, for example, are more likely to be damp than metal under normal conditions—and damp conditions can enable many infectious agents to thrive,” explains molecular biologist  Dr. Tracey Evans . “ Furthermore, a warm room is more favorable for many pathogens than a cold one.” Regardless of what kinds of temperatures and surfaces you have in your home, there are things you can do to keep these dangerous pathogens at bay. Ditch germs at ...

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...