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Falling mortgage rates have spurred a mini refinancing boom, a piece of good news for banks and other lenders that have been grappling with a cooling housing market, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mortgage-application volume jumped 18 percent last week from a week earlier, according to data released yesterday by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Refinance applications were up 39 percent, and the MBA’s refinance index, which measures applications, hit its highest level since November 2016. Purchase applications were up 4 percent. Mortgage rates reported by Freddie Mac last week dropped nearly a quarter percentage point to 4.06 percent, the lowest since January 2018 and the biggest one-week drop in more than a decade. Many lenders have already started offering mortgages with interest under 4 percent. That has boosted loan applications and is a welcome sign for mortgage executives who had earlier been bracing for a continued rise in rates in 2019.

A sale is imminent for a San Antonio medical office building mired in bankruptcy — despite some fireworks at an auction last week, the San Antonio Express-News reported. Camco Land Ltd., an Austin partnership, successfully bid $14.2 million for the building at 9618 Huebner, edging out Denver-based Broe Real Estate Group by $100,000. The sale is expected to close later this week. Before approving the sale on Wednesday, though, Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ronald King denied Cherish Medical Office Building LLC the opportunity to bid amid allegations it has connections with Michael Horrell — who is involved with the building’s current ownership. Ray Battaglia, a bankruptcy lawyer for Palomar LLC, which has a stake in the building’s bankrupt ownership group, Tresha-MOB LLC, raised the objection regarding Cherish. Battaglia said on Monday it was his understanding that Randy Soule, Cherish’s owner, has had a long association with Horrell and that it should have been disclosed to the court before the auction.

President Trump ordered federal regulators on Wednesday to develop plans to change the way the country finances the majority of its home purchases, the Washington Post reported. The plan could upend decades of housing policy while finally reckoning with a major piece of unfinished business from the financial crisis — the fates of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing finance giants that back more than half the mortgages written in the U.S. The two companies, which buy mortgages from lenders, then package them into securities to sell to investors, have been under government conservatorship for 10 years after receiving billions in taxpayer bailouts. Lawmakers have been wary of tinkering with their structure, fearful a wrong move could disrupt the housing market and the availability of 30-year mortgages, the most popular way home purchases are financed in the United States. Trump signed a presidential memorandum yesterday directing the Treasury Department to develop a plan that would end Fannie’s and Freddie’s government conservatorships and improve oversight of the companies, which have trillions in assets. Trump also instructed the Department of Housing and Urban Development to submit a plan to change the operations of other parts of the housing system, including the Federal Housing Administration, which helps low-income and first-time buyers.

The federal agency that insures mortgages for first-time home buyers is tightening its standards, concerned it is allowing too many risky loans to be extended, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Federal Housing Administration told lenders this month it would begin flagging more loans as high risk. Those mortgages, many of which are extended to borrowers with low credit scores and high loan payments relative to their incomes, will now go through a more rigorous manual underwriting process, the FHA said. The FHA tries to boost homeownership by insuring loans to borrowers with less-than-stellar credit, lessening the risk for lenders. The agency is worried that lenders are making loans to borrowers who can’t repay, leading to a spike in defaults that strains the agency’s reserves. The FHA’s decision to tighten underwriting standards could mean fewer first-time home buyers are able to get mortgages. Roughly 40,000 to 50,000 loans a year likely would be affected, or about 4 to 5 percent of the FHA-insured mortgages originated annually in recent years, according to Keith Becker, the agency’s chief risk officer.