%1

The Federal Housing Finance Agency on Wednesday directed servicers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-backed loans to pause foreclosures for up to 60 days upon notification that borrowers have applied for Homeowner Assistance Fund money, National Mortgage News reported. “Today’s action will provide borrowers who need temporary mortgage assistance with additional time to be evaluated for relief,” said Sandra Thompson, acting director of the FHFA, in a press release. The move provides direction to servicers who have been trying to determine how best to juggle the phase-out of other types of federal housing relief at the same time that states, U.S. territories and tribal entities have been distributing the up to $9.96 billion available from the Treasury’s fund.

Better, the online mortgage lender that drew criticism for firing about 9% of its workforce via video conference call last year and made additional reductions last month, is planning to cut its staff further through a voluntary separation plan, Bloomberg News reported. The company is offering some of its corporate and product development and engineering employees as much as 60 days of severance pay and health insurance if they agree to depart, according to a person with knowledge of the plans. Employees under 40 years old will have seven days from receipt of the separation agreement to accept the offer, with their last day on April 15 and final payment on the same date, the person said. Those 40 and older will have 21 days to accept. Chief Executive Officer Vishal Garg sparked outrage for last year’s mass firing, then apologized and took a hiatus after clips of the incident went viral. A month ago, New York-based Better began firing roughly 3,000 employees in the U.S. and India — about 35% of its workforce — as rising interest rates weigh on the volume of new loans.

Twenty-three New York City landlords and apartment brokers agreed to enact reforms to resolve a lawsuit alleging they routinely turned away prospective tenants seeking to use federal vouchers to supplement their rent, the Washington Post reported. The complaint, filed in March 2021, accused 88 landlords and brokers in the city of repeatedly rejecting tenants with Section 8 vouchers, a possible violation of state and local housing laws, though experts say they are rarely enforced. “As a result of widespread voucher discrimination, voucher holders must frequently accept subpar housing in segregated neighborhoods, or risk losing their voucher altogether,” the complaint claims. The case is ongoing in District Court for the Southern District of New York for the remaining tenants. Experts say that the Section 8 program has become more critical to low-income households in recent months as rents have increased, reaching a U.S. median of $1,792 in February, up 17 percent from a year ago. The program typically pays the difference between the amount of rent a voucher holder can afford and the amount being charged by landlords.

China Evergrande Group and some of its biggest offshore creditors have reached agreement on moving restructuring talks forward, helping stave off their threats of taking over the company’s offshore businesses after $2 billion in offshore cash was seized by banks, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Evergrande agreed in principle late last week to pay bondholders’ advisory fees, provide additional due diligence on the company’s financial health, and give creditors a formal role in the restructuring process. The fee- and information-sharing agreement is seen as a moderate step in the right direction rather than substantial progress to restructure Evergrande’s debt. Bondholders appear to be changing tack after they threatened to sue Evergrande in January for allegedly stonewalling discussions with them. Tensions simmered again after Evergrande disclosed in March that banks had taken control of more than $2 billion held by one of its key subsidiaries. Evergrande reached out to an organized committee of foreign bondholders soon after the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year to move talks along. The discussions first focused on reaching an agreement over paying creditors’ advisory fees, until Evergrande disclosed the $2 billion cash seizure at its Hong Kong-registered property management arm.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate home loan jumped to 4.67%, mortgage-finance giant Freddie Mac said yesterday, marking the weekly figure’s highest reading since December 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported. The increase extends the 2022 surge in mortgage rates. The rise is hardly shocking, given the record-low rates reached in the pandemic period and concerns about high U.S. inflation readings. But it has been faster than many analysts expected. At the beginning of the year, the average rate on America’s most popular home loan was 3.22%. Over time, higher mortgage rates typically slow home-buying activity. But for now, there are ample signs that the U.S. home boom, featuring surging prices, ultralow inventories and persistent demand around the country, is far from over.

Mall operator PREIT's February comparable sales at core malls hit an "all-time high" of $618 per square foot, according to a press release, Retail Dive reported. The company, which filed and emerged from bankruptcy in 2020, also said that over 60% of that portfolio had sales productivity of more than $550 per square foot. After filing for bankruptcy in 2020, PREIT recapitalized, grew its sales and cut its losses by nearly half. Its losses, though, still remained substantial at $135.9 million for 2021. "We've continued our recovery ahead of expectation, capitalizing on broad based momentum, and confirming that the work we've done in shaping our portfolio, replacing anchors and remerchandising has positioned [the] portfolio to perform," CEO and Chairman Joe Coradino told analysts earlier in March, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript. A massive shortfall in rent payments sent PREIT into chapter 11, along with its peer CBL Properties, as retailers worked through the financial impact of temporary store closures and lingering traffic declines during the early phases of the pandemic. For PREIT and other mall operators, the challenges of the pandemic followed years of decline in revenue as the mall's place in the U.S. continued to diminish through the past decade.

Mortgage rates in the U.S continued their rapid rise, reaching a level not seen in more than three years, Bloomberg News reported. The average for a 30-year loan was 4.42%, up from 4.16% last week and the highest since January 2019, Freddie Mac said in a statement Thursday. Borrowing costs tracked another increase in 10-year Treasury yields. The Federal Reserve lifted the benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point last week, with more hikes possible in the coming months. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has roiled supply chains and financial markets, raising the stakes of the Fed’s fight to tame inflation. “The rise in mortgage rates, combined with continued house price appreciation, is increasing monthly mortgage payments and quickly affecting homebuyers’ ability to keep up with the market,” Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, said in the statement.