Matt Carter

Better HoldCo Inc. is laying off 9 percent of its workforce — roughly 900 employees in the U.S. and India — and has revamped the terms under which it plans to go public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Better is putting a positive spin on the news, saying the

Homebuyer demand for purchase mortgages picked up last week after adjusting for the Thanksgiving holiday, but requests to refinance were down sharply as mortgage rates rose for the third week in a row. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey showed demand for purchase loans was up a seasonally adjusted 5 percent from the

The Federal Reserve is still considering accelerating its timetable for withdrawing support for mortgage markets when it meets in December, despite uncertainty about the Omicron variant, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told Senate lawmakers this week. The economy is “very strong” and inflation is looking like more than a transitory issue, Powell said, so the Fed

Rapid home price appreciation during the pandemic means loan limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will make a record-breaking leap in 2022, fueling a debate over housing affordability and competition in the mortgage industry. The 2022 conforming loan limit for Fannie and Freddie will be $647,200 in most of the country, and close to

It could soon get easier for investors in single-family rental homes to acquire and liquidate individual properties or entire portfolios more efficiently using a one-stop online marketplace Altisource is creating with SFRhub.com. Since its 2018 launch, backers of SFRhub.com says the site has reviewed, underwritten or marketed nearly 200,000 single family rental homes, with an

Uncertainty over exactly how much of a threat the new Omicron coronavirus variant poses to human health and the global economy could keep the Federal Reserve from getting more aggressive about its timeline for withdrawing its support for mortgage markets when it meets next month. The World Health Organization declared Omicron a “variant of concern”

Policymakers at the Federal Reserve are prepared to accelerate the Fed’s timetable for tapering its support for mortgage markets if inflation continues to run higher than the their objectives. Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s last meeting released Wednesday reveal that some policymakers are worried that the current plan to phase out the Fed’s

Rising mortgage rates may be spurring interest in both homebuying and refinancing, with some borrowers looking to lock in rates now before they get much higher. A weekly survey of lenders by the Mortgage Bankers Association found requests for purchase loans were up a seasonally adjusted 5 percent last week compared to a week ago,

Flush with new private equity, real estate valuations and e-closing provider Accurate Group has made its second acquisition of the year, this time targeting eMerge Property Solutions, a provider of broker price opinions (BPOs) and other alternative valuation solutions. Cleveland-based Accurate Group — which announced a strategic investment by Canadian private equity firm Novacap in

End-to-end real estate services platform Fathom Holdings Inc. has raised nearly $33 million through a public stock offering that it will use primarily to acquire smaller real estate brokerages in new markets. Fathom integrates residential brokerage, mortgage, title, insurance and software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings to brokerages and real estate agents, through brands including Fathom Realty, intelliAgent