For hours, it was unclear whether a White House memo freezing federal funding would impact mortgage programs. In the meantime, government agencies announced that their single-family mortgage programs were unaffected by the planned funding pause.

The Section 199A deduction for pass-through entities is set to expire at the end of this year. The Mortgage Bankers Association is pushing for an extension, which appears likely. The question is how Congress will pay for massive tax breaks.

The warehouse lending business remains profitable, but that doesn’t mean the sector is without challenges. There’s been two recent exits, but on the plus-side, the nation’s ninth-largest warehouse shop has filed for an initial public offering with plans to quickly double its business.

Bill Pulte, Trump’s choice to run the FHFA, is a scion of a homebuilding industry giant, but his background is mostly in private equity and philanthropy.

The Trump administration will likely take starkly different positions on housing and the mortgage market compared with the Biden administration. Expect changes at the GSEs, while a reduction to FHA mortgage insurance premiums looks unlikely.

It’s not every day that an expanded-credit specialist branches out into conventional funding. But that’s what A&D Mortgage is doing via its acquisition of Flagstar’s TPO unit.

Depository institutions posted nice gains in MSR values in the fourth quarter, thanks to rising interest rates. But higher rates come at a cost in the form of lower originations.

Republicans, who have long opposed the bi-merge credit scoring model, now control Congress. That, combined with Trump’s “regulatory freeze,” could spell the end of this part of credit report reform.

WaFd Bank is ending its mortgage origination activity; TD Bank is considering selling jumbo mortgages; some banks are still increasing their mortgage business; President Trump issues order on housing, freezes regulatory efforts.

Following a strong jobs report, many economists now expect the Fed to keep rates unchanged. Also, concerns about policies from the Trump administration are helping to drive up the 10-year Treasury rate.