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Today on Real Estate Backstage, the Corporate Transparency Act is back in effect … The CFPB drops its lawsuit against Rocket Homes … Inventory levels continue to normalize as sales drop … NAR makes its first settlement payment … and consumer credit card debt hits a new record high.
Corporate Transparency Act Back In Effect
According to the National Association of REALTORS®:
“The Financial Crime Enforcement Network’s Beneficial Ownership Information reporting rule and requirements as mandated by the Corporate Transparency Act are back in effect. A Texas federal court in the Smith et al. v. U.S. Department of Treasury case lifted the injunction halting FinCEN’s actions related to the Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting Rule. The Texas federal court’s actions are in alignment with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Texas Top Cop Shop, Inc. order lifting a nationwide injunction related to the CTA. Actions by the Supreme Court and the Texas federal court will now allow FinCEN to proceed with further implementation and enforcement of the Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting Rule.
FinCEN has announced that it is extending the compliance deadline to March 21, 2025, for reporting companies and entities to file initial BOI reports or to update and correct a BOI report. FinCEN is providing entities with additional time due to current litigation. FinCEN has also noted that it ‘intends to initiate a process this year to revise the BOI reporting rule to reduce burden for lower-risk entities, including many U.S. small businesses.’”
(Source: nar.realtor)
CFPB Drops Lawsuit Against Rocket and Jason Mitchell Group
According to RISMedia:
“The Consumer FInancial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has dismissed a lawsuit against Rocket Homes and the Jason Mitchell Group (JMG) with prejudice, ending the litigation which accused both companies of engaging in an illegal kickback scheme steering homeowners in exchange for leads.
In an email obtained by RISMedia, Thomas Burke, a lawyer representing JMG, wrote that he was “thrilled” that the case had been dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled again at a later date.
Jason Mitchell, founder and CEO of JMG, previously denied allegations in the lawsuit. The news comes after the Trump administration ordered the CFPB to halt all enforcement actions and lawsuits earlier this month.”
(Source: RISMedia.com)
Inventory Levels Continue to Normalize
According to Inman:
“The first number to know this week: 25 percent. That’s how many more active listings there were this January compared to January 2024. For a sense of scale, it was about 829,000 active listings this year, compared to only about 666,000 active listings last year. And in fact, we are now only 13 percent below January 2020 levels, on the eve of the pandemic. That’s a huge milestone the housing market is approaching, after really being defined by low inventory for the last few years.
Here’s what happened early in the pandemic: Inventory plunged, first because sellers weren’t even sure about selling in the early pandemic, and then because demand actually took off, fueled in part by lower interest rates as well as booming demand for more space and maybe the chance to work from home.
So ultimately, just over a year later, by May 2021, for instance, we had 62 percent fewer active listings than in May of 2019. That helped fuel some extraordinary price appreciation and really frenzied competition in the market for about a year.
Then, in mid-2022, interest rates shot up from record lows of around 3 percent, above pre-pandemic levels, to the highest in a generation. This helped put the brakes on homebuyer demand for a while, slowly helping inventory build back up toward normal levels, and that’s almost where we are today.
Now, what does higher inventory really mean? It should restore some balance to the market between buyers and sellers, dampening home price appreciation, helping homes sell a little slower on average, and giving buyers more variety of choices and a little more negotiating power. All of that means the market is shaping up to be a little friendlier for buyers this spring.
Pending sales have risen just 2 percent from the same time last year, showing that the home-purchase surge in Q4 of 2024 has not really continued into the new year. That surge was driven by lower interest rates, so it’s perhaps not surprising to see it peter out now that interest rates are back up around 7 percent.”
(Source: Inman.com)
Mortgage Rates Fall After Softer Economic Data
According to HousingWire:
“Mortgage rates decreased again today on weak economic data, following last Friday’s similar drop in the 10-year yield. Furthermore, the mortgage spreads in today’s pricing are favorable. According to the latest quote from Mortgage News Daily, mortgage rates are now around 6.89%. This represents a decline of 0.37% from the most recent high of 7.26%, which was recorded on Jan. 13.
Many might be taken aback by this drop, especially given ongoing tariff talks, rising inflation expectations in surveys, and the Federal Reserve adopting a more hawkish stance — all hinting that mortgage rates could be inching toward 8%. Yet, as we’ve pointed out before, the recent improvement in mortgage spreads has remarkably kept rates from soaring too high, effectively putting a ceiling at around 7.25%.
Today, the ISM service sector data experienced a significant decline, dropping into negative territory for growth. The Michigan Confidence Index also decreased, along with existing home sales.
Additionally, this week has witnessed job losses due to federal government layoffs, which means less money circulating in the economy.”
(Source: HousingWire.com)
Existing Home Sales Fell In January
According to Real Estate News:
“Existing home sales hit the brakes in January, but some of the underlying data suggests there is still pent-up demand in the market. Between December and January, the number of existing home sales dropped 4.9%, according to the National Association of Realtors. Inventory also grew during that time to 3.5 months of supply, up from 3 months a year ago, NAR said.
Despite the monthly decline, existing home sales were off to a better start in 2025 compared to 2024, rising 2% year-over-year in January — even as the home affordability index fell to 64, the lowest level on record, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
It’s worth noting that in December, existing home sales saw an even larger year-over-year bump — 9.3% — but that still wasn’t enough to push annual sales above 2023 levels.”
(Source: RealEstateNews.com)
New Construction Trends Down In January
According to RISMedia:
“This year kicked off with a downturn in construction—seasonally adjusted, there were only 1,366,000 privately-owned housing starts in January, 9.8% lower than the number of starts from December 2024.
These numbers come courtesy of the latest report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Census Bureau. The January 2025 housing starts, though a sharp monthly decline, were only 0.7% lower than the number of starts reported in January 2024 (1,376,000). Single-family housing starts, which stood at 993,000 in January 2025, were also 8.4% lower than the December figures.
Building permits stood at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,483,000 in January 2025. This is a negligible change (0.1% higher) compared to December 2024 and a slight decline (1.7%) from January 2024.
Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com®, described the permit results as ‘first place where we see some uncertainty about the future affecting builder decisions.‘
Berner proposed that the large gap between housing starts and housing completions (1,651,000) in January suggested ‘that builders are in wait-and-see mode when it comes to kicking off new residential construction projects,’ due to ongoing concerns about inflation and proposed tariffs by the Trump administration.”
(Source: RISMedia.com)
NAR has Made the First Settlement Payment
According to Inman:
“The National Association of Realtors has officially handed over nearly half of its monetary obligation under a settlement that aims to resolve antitrust claims brought by homesellers nationwide over the trade group’s commission rules.
Under the terms of the deal, NAR must pay $418 million, plus interest, by February 2028 into an escrow account for the settlement fund to benefit a class of millions of homesellers across the country. The 1.5-million member trade group paid $5 million into the account when the deal was first submitted for preliminary approval and an initial $197 million payment became due on Monday, Feb. 24, 90 days after the deal received final approval from a federal court in Missouri.
NAR made that $197 million payment on Feb. 20, according to lead plaintiffs’ counsel Michael Ketchmark of Ketchmark & McCreight. Asked where the payment was coming from and whether it was coming entirely from NAR’s reserves, an NAR spokesperson declined to comment except to say, ‘We are complying with the terms of the settlement.’
At least some of the settlement payout will come from NAR’s reserve funds, including operating reserves and those that were collected from members specifically for lobbying and to advertise the Realtor brand.”
(Source: Inman.com)
Consumer Credit Card Debt Hits Record High
According to CNBC:
“Collectively, Americans now owe a record $1.21 trillion on their credit cards, according to a new quarterly report on household debt from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Credit card balances jumped by $45 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024, driven in part by holiday spending, and are now 7.3% higher than a year ago.
At the same time, credit card delinquency rates ‘remained elevated,’ the New York Fed researchers found — with 7.18% of balances transitioning to delinquency over the last year. That uptick could indicate ‘borrowers are having some difficulty repaying,’ the researchers said on a press call Wednesday.
‘No one should be surprised that credit card debt hit another record high,’ said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree … ‘Stubborn inflation has shrunk a lot of Americans’ financial margin for error from slim to about none, forcing people to lean more heavily on credit card debt,’ Schulz said.”
(Source: cnbc.com)
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