Mortgage Banks/Real Estate Credit

The parent company of Silicon Valley Bank filed for bankruptcy, easing a sale of its remaining assets after the technology-focused bank at the core of its business was seized by federal regulators. SVB Financial Group filed for chapter 11 protection on Friday in New York bankruptcy court, the largest bankruptcy filing stemming from a bank failure since Washington Mutual Inc. in 2008. The parent company of Silicon Valley Bank filed for bankruptcy, easing a sale of its remaining assets…

WASHINGTON—A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is reviving efforts to spur the renovation of single-family homes in blighted neighborhoods, the latest effort to dent a long-term national housing shortage.  Legislation introduced in the Senate aims to create a new tax credit to cover a developer’s costs when the renovation of a crumbling building exceeds a home’s potential selling price, so the project becomes feasible. The bill, modeled in part on a much smaller…

Amazon. AMZN 0.50% com Inc. employees will soon be able to use their company shares as collateral when buying homes, under an arrangement with online mortgage lender Better.com.A new Better.com product, Equity Unlocker, will allow employees to pledge stock for loans for down payments, the companies said, rather than having to sell the stock to raise cash. To protect itself from a continued slide in Amazon’s stock price, Better.com will charge a higher rate on the…

Home-price growth decelerated in 2022 after a rapid rise in mortgage rates priced many buyers out of the market. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures home prices across the nation, rose 5.8% in the year ended in December, down from a 7.6% annual rate the prior month. The increase was the lowest December-to-December change since 2019. On a monthly basis, the index fell 0.8% in December compared with November, the sixth straight…

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration is expected to trim costs under a mortgage program for first-time and lower-income buyers, a bid to boost affordability while median home prices remain near record highs, according to people familiar with the move.  The Federal Housing Administration will reduce the fee borrowers pay to have their mortgages insured by the agency by about $800 a year on a typical loan, or 0.3 percentage point, the people said. WASHINGTON—The Biden administration is…

The number of big office landlords defaulting on their loans is on the rise, fresh evidence that more developers believe that remote and hybrid work habits have permanently impaired the office market.  The giant investment manager Brookfield Asset Management recently defaulted on a total of over $750 million in debt for a pair of 52-story towers in Los Angeles, according to a February securities filing. Real-estate firm RXR is in talks with creditors to restructure debt on 61 Broadway, a 34-story…

Home prices declined in November from the prior month as higher mortgage-interest rates made home purchases less affordable for home buyers. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures home prices across the nation, fell 0.6% in November compared with October, the fifth straight month-over-month decline. On a year-over-year basis, the index rose 7.7% in November, down from a 9.2% annual rate the prior month. Existing-home sales…

Home prices declined in October from the previous month as higher mortgage interest rates continued to weigh on home-buying demand. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures average home prices in major metropolitan areas across the nation, fell 0.5% in October compared with September, the fourth straight month-over-month decline. On a year-over-year basis, the index rose 9.2% in October, down from a 10.7% annual rate the prior month.…

Before the financial crisis of 2008, lenders barely bothered to verify mortgage applicants’ income. Today they demand reams of evidence that borrowers can afford their loans.Banks once held big pools of shoddy mortgages with little consequence. Now such exotic debt securities hardly exist, and banks would find them too costly to hold anyway. Underwater mortgages have given way to hefty cushions of home equity, particularly after a run-up in prices over the past two years. A 28% decline in U.S. home prices…

The financial squeeze that started about six months ago for companies that lend to ordinary Americans is getting worse, contrasting sharply with recent rallies in stocks and corporate bonds. The main reason: These finance companies have lost access to easy money. Widespread economic uncertainty has made debt investors less willing to buy the bonds these nontraditional lenders issue. Higher interest rates, courtesy of the Federal Reserve, have given investors other attractive options. Now, these finance…