The Latest Breaking News from Freddie Mac

The interest rate for 30-year mortgage now at 5 per cent for first time since February 2011

The week in housing was one of great challenges, with mortgage rates cracking the 5% level while homeowners faced an uptick in property taxes and state attorneys general demanded that mortgage servicers drop their convenience fees charged to borrowers.

Compared to other sectors of the wider economy, the housing and mortgage industries have traditionally been slower to embrace cutting-edge technologies and digital solutions. A myriad of reasons explain this pokey response to evolving change, ranging from the sector’s conservative risk tolerance to a lack of standardization in many evolving technologies.

The latest data news from the housing market included new records being achieved in single-family home and condominium sales, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage crashing through the 4.5% level, and a warning from a prominent industry economist on the potential for a recession created by the Federal Reserve.

This week's housing and mortgage industry data is something of a seesaw ride, with mortgage rates, millennial homebuying and the mortgage delinquency rate rising while mortgage applications and a major builder's output did not. 

In the wake of the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Florida last year, the two federally chartered agencies that back most residential mortgages in the country, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, have instituted new rules requiring lenders to verify the condition of condominium buildings before approving loans.

Mortgage rates have spiked as a result of rising inflation and stronger than expected consumer spending, according to new data released by Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC). While mortgage rates were on the rise, housing starts were in decline, based on the latest federal data.

Buying a condo in an older South Florida high-rise? For people who want to finance their deal, it’ll be getting tougher to take out a loan backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises that make mortgages available to low- to moderate-income borrowers.