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Mortgage rates dropped below 4 percent for the first time since November, providing more kindling to an already hot housing market as the crucial spring selling season gets under way, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 3.97 percent for the week ended April 20, from 4.08 percent a week earlier and 4.3 percent in mid-March, according to data released Thursday by mortgage company Freddie Mac. For most of 2016, mortgage rates, which generally move together with yields on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note, hovered just above 3.5 percent for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.

The House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday to examine the latest draft of the "Financial CHOICE Act of 2017.” The hearing, titled “A Legislative Proposal to Create Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers, and Entrepreneurs,” will be examining the discussion the latest draft of the legislation sponsored by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas). Click here to view the witness list for the hearing. 

Click here to view the discussion draft of the "Financial CHOICE Act of 2017.” 

In recent years, private investment firms sold foreclosed homes on high-interest installment contracts to poor Cincinnati residents who could not get traditional bank mortgages, the New York Times reported today. Now, the city is cracking down, calling those who offer such deals “predatory” actors targeting the “unsuspecting and vulnerable.” In a sweeping lawsuit, Cincinnati took aim at one of the nation’s largest sellers of foreclosed homes, Harbour Portfolio Advisors, saying that the firm owes more than $360,000 in unpaid fines, fees and violation notices. The firm failed to properly maintain dozens of homes, the city claims, leading in one case to a child’s testing positive for lead poisoning.