First-time homebuyers made up 55% of agency purchase mortgages in 2023, according to Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) eMBS data, the highest such share in the 10 years ICE has been tracking the metric. A record 47% of government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) purchase loans in 2023 came from first-time h

The mortgage rate lockdown premise says that if rates rise, inventory can’t grow meaningfully. The idea is that nobody will trade their low mortgage rates to buy another home — even though this happened every week last year. Of course, I have a different view. My podcast partner, Editor in Chief Sar

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on Friday that it has lowered the interest rates for its single-family housing (SFH) direct home loan programs as of March 1, according to an email update sent out earlier this week.Section 502 SFH Direct rates are now 4.5%, SFH non-program rates a

Kiavi, one of the nation’s largest private lenders for residential real estate investors, closed a $350 million unrated securitization of residential transition loans (RTLs), the company announced on Monday. The loans bundled in the securitization were mostly investment property loans used for fix-a