Last year, Laura Grannemann’s dedication to providing Americans with access to safe and affordable housing earned her a spot as one of HousingWire’s 2020 Women of Influence. Today, her passion is still apparent in the work that she’s doing to help those in underserved communities own homes and build wealth.  “COVID-19 has starkly highlighted housing…

Servicers’ total number of loans in forbearance dropped for the seventh week in a row, down another 16 basis points last week to 4.5% of portfolio volume, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Following the massive decline the week prior, the share of loans in forbearance has dropped a total of 40 basis points in…

Housing starts jumped in March, recovering from a bleak February that included wild winter storms in the South, according to a recent report from the Census Bureau. Single-family housing starts rose 15.3% over the month to a pace of 1.24 million annualized units. That’s up 37% from a year ago, but it’s important to take…

There’s no denying shopping for a home is time-consuming. You have to pay attention to everything – the neighborhood, floorplan, proximity to work, school district and cost. Even if you plan to live in the home for years, you want features that’ll increase your property’s value for when the time eventually comes to sell it.…

In 2020, housing was an economic bright spot for a nation shuttered inside. Globally speaking, things look much different roughly a year later –  jobs are returning by the millions, a series of viable vaccines are being deployed across America, stimulus checks have hit bank accounts and mortgage rates are ascending rapidly from nearly a…

As Housing Wire reported earlier this year, 2021 will be a year of heightened M&A activity — and not just for mortgage lenders and originators. As the refinance wave gives way to a purchase market, consolidation is already upon us. This means that, after tremendously profitable years for many in the settlement services space, we’ll…

Blend Labs filed a confidential registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, signaling its intent to enter the public markets. The dropping of the S-1 closely follows the mortgage tech firm’s big venture capital raise in January, in which it raised $300 million in a Series G round from Tiger Global Management…

The Hudson Valley of New York has gone from a dream retirement location to a housing hot spot for those leaving New York City. In Kingston, a city on the Hudson River two hours north of Manhattan, homes are being snatched up by New York City residents pining for more space. But it’s not just…

Data analytics giant Black Knight and digital mortgage vendor platform Stavvy are the latest companies to officially receive the Remote Online Notarization (RON) compliance certification through the Mortgage Industry Standard Maintenance Organization (MISMO). Their initiation marks the ninth and 10th companies to receive the specialized certification in the program’s first year. Originally introduced in April 2020, the MISMO RON…

In modern history, the housing market has never seen a month like March. Record demand and the lowest levels of inventory on record pushed sales prices to record highs in March and made life very complicated for buyers, real estate agents, builders and lenders across the United States. The national median home-sale price hit a…