The one truism about mortgage banking that everyone knows: It’s a highly cyclical business that lives and dies on two central factors, interest rates and employment.
New VA home guaranty business continued to boom, rising 21.8% from the first quarter to a record $100.52 billion. But FHA single-family endorsements fell 5.9% to $73.19 billion over that period.
“Many banks and nonbanks have pulled back on the aggressive lending terms and conditions they offered in the prior 12 to 18 months,” said one financial services executive...
Thanks to the economic carnage caused by the pandemic, interest rates continue to drift lower, with some originators offering 30-year FRMs at under 3.0% and 15-year mortgages below 2.0%.
For HUD, the central question boils down to this: Will the MMIF have enough cash on hand to weather what could turn out to be a delinquency tsunami on the FHA book of business?