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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in coming weeks will adopt a rule requiring mortgage servicers to give struggling homeowners until next year to resume repayments, but is expected to carve out some groups of borrowers following industry pushback, Reuters reported. The CFPB in April proposed, among other measures, a new review process that would generally prohibit mortgage servicers from starting a foreclosure until after Dec. 31, 2021. The rule will throw a lifeline to hundreds of thousands of homeowners due to exit COVID-19 mortgage holiday or "forbearance" programs in coming months. The CFPB plans to finalize the rule and make it effective before the end of August, but has agreed to carve out certain groups of borrowers after the industry said that the proposal was too broad and beyond the CFPB's legal remit. A CFPB spokesperson said the agency is working on finalizing the proposal but did not comment on what exclusions had been agreed to.

An estimated 22 million people in the United States live in mobile homes, long pitched as an affordable path of homeownership to the working poor, people on fixed incomes and retirees, the New York Times reported. But banks won’t often lend to mobile home owners, partly because the loan amounts are too small to be profitable and because the federal government doesn’t typically guarantee those mortgages. Instead, the mobile home financing market is dominated by five lenders, including 21st Mortgage and Vanderbilt Mortgage — two units of Clayton Homes, a Berkshire Hathaway business. The pandemic hit owners of mobile homes especially hard. In August, the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy think tank, reported that 35 percent of mobile home owners had worked in industries that lost the most jobs during the pandemic. But government efforts to protect them have been patchy. Early on, federal housing agencies instructed mortgage firms to defer payments for struggling borrowers, but many mobile home owners were not covered by those guidelines. The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, signed into law in March, included $10 billion for a Homeowners Assistance Fund, which earmarks money for the most vulnerable homeowners facing foreclosure. State officials lobbied the Treasury Department to make sure some of that money goes to residents of mobile homes. Treasury is expected to release new guidance soon on how the money can be spent. In the meantime, owners of mobile homes have had little choice but to rely on the good graces of the dominant financing firms.

In the turbocharged housing market, prices are surging and homes on the market are routinely selling for far more than the listing price. Those who can’t afford big down payments are often the ones losing out, the Wall Street Journal reported. Half of existing-home buyers in April who used mortgages put at least 20% down, according to a National Association of Realtors survey. In 10 years of record-keeping, that percentage has hit or exceeded 50% three times, and all have been since last fall. A quarter of existing-home buyers in April paid cash, the highest level since 2017, NAR said. Home prices are surging. The median existing-home price rose 19% from a year earlier to $341,600 in April, a record high, according to NAR. That is largely because there aren’t enough homes on the market to meet demand. In such a housing market, sellers can often choose among multiple offers. Cash buyers have an advantage because they don’t need to secure mortgages, which can make the transaction go faster. Sellers sometimes worry that offers with smaller down payments are likelier to fall through during the loan-closing process, agents say.

As the national economy recovers from the pandemic and begins to take off, New York City is lagging, with changing patterns of work and travel threatening the engines that have long powered its jobs and prosperity, the New York Times reported. New York has suffered deeper job losses as a share of its work force than any other big American city. And while the country has regained two-thirds of the positions it lost after the coronavirus arrived, New York has recouped fewer than half, leaving a deficit of more than 500,000 jobs. New York City lost the greatest share of jobs among the 20 largest U.S. cities. The city had an 11.8 percent decline in jobs from February 2020 to April 2021, almost three times the loss on the national level.

The Federal Housing Administration is relaxing the way it assesses student-loan debt when weighing eligibility for homebuying assistance as the Biden administration pushes to help lower-income borrowers and narrow a racial gap in homeownership, the Wall Street Journal reported. The changes, which were presented in a letter to lenders late Thursday, are intended to allow more borrowers to qualify for loans backed by the FHA, a unit of the Department of Housing and Urban Development that provides insurance on mortgages to first-time and lower-income home buyers. Prospective home buyers who qualify for FHA help typically have lower credit scores than individuals with other government-backed loans — such as those guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — and they are disproportionately Black and Hispanic, according to data collected by federal regulators. The surge in student debt over the past two decades has coincided with historically low homeownership rates among younger households. Some researchers say the phenomena are linked. Relaxing the way it factors in student debt will bring the FHA more in line with other government-backed mortgage programs, such as Fannie and Freddie, which also eased their criteria in recent years. The Biden administration is proposing more down-payment assistance for Black homeownership and taking a number of other measures to fulfill a pledge to address racial equity in housing.

More than 4 million people say they fear being evicted or foreclosed upon in the coming months, just as two studies released Wednesday found that the nation’s housing availability and affordability crisis is expected to worsen significantly following the pandemic, the Associated Press reported. The studies come as a federal eviction moratorium is set to expire at the end of the month. The moratorium has kept many tenants owing back rent housed. Making matters worse, the tens of billions of dollars in federal emergency rental assistance that was supposed to solve the problem has not reached most tenants. The housing crisis, the studies found, risks widening the gap between Black, Latino and white households, as well as putting homeownership out of the reach of lower-income Americans. The reports were released on the same day as Census Bureau’s biweekly Household Pulse Survey came out. It showed that nearly 4.2 million people nationwide report that it is likely or somewhat likely that they will be evicted or foreclosed upon in the next two months. Many of those tenants are waiting to see what becomes of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eviction moratorium, which is set expire June 30. Housing advocates are pressuring President Joe Biden’s administration to extend it. They argue extending it would give states the time to distribute more than $45 billion in rental assistance and protect vulnerable communities from COVID-19. The rental assistance has been slow to reach tenants.

EAGLE Hospitality Real Estate Investment Trust (EH-Reit), which is part of Singapore-based Eagle Hospitality Trust (EHT), has received net proceeds of about U.S. $153.9 million following the sale of five chapter 11 properties, the Singapore Business Times reported. The net proceeds have been partially used to repay the debtor-in-possession facility and the stalking horse "break up" fee, EH-Reit trustee DBS Trustee said in a bourse filing on Thursday. The balance remaining is around $109.7 million, which will go to repaying ongoing post-petition expenses and pre-petition creditors. This includes some $380 million under a pre-petition facilities agreement, as well as claims from trade creditors against these entities which DBS Trustee said cannot be quantified at this time. "To the extent any value remains, other junior creditors would be paid," it added. The sale of four properties under chapter 11 protection for $117.2 million was completed on June 3. These assets were Sheraton Denver Tech Center, Four Points by Sheraton San Jose Airport, Embassy Suites by Hilton Anaheim North, and Double Tree by Hilton Salt Lake City. Hilton Atlanta Northeast was later sold for $37.9 million on June 8.

Washington Prime Group Inc., a real estate investment trust that operates enclosed malls and strip centers across the U.S., filed for bankruptcy after the COVID-19 pandemic curtailed in-person shopping, Bloomberg News reported. The chapter 11 filing in Houston will allow Washington Prime to continue operating while it seeks to implement a restructuring agreement that it reached with certain creditors, according to a board resolution filed with the bankruptcy petition. The company, which estimated its assets at about $4 billion and debt of almost $3.5 billion, secured an up to $100 million debtor-in-possession loan that would help fund operations during court proceedings. The Columbus, Ohio-based firm that operates around 100 malls, saw its bonds tumble into distressed territory in 2020 as rent collections dried up and tenants filed for bankruptcy or went out of business. It began negotiating with its creditors last year and skipped a $23 million bond interest payment in February. Creditors had been extending a forbearance agreement amid the talks.

More than a fifth of retail space on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile is vacant after shoppers were driven away by the pandemic and unrest. Now, the reopening city urgently needs them to return, Bloomberg News reported. The corridor, one of America’s quintessential big-city shopping experiences, bolsters Chicago’s finances — the zip code where it’s located generated about $150 million from sales taxes in 2019. Last year, that plunged to around $60 million, according to local Alderman Brian Hopkins, whose ward includes the iconic stretch of Michigan Avenue. The Magnificent Mile’s decline has been even more dramatic than other downtown slumps — Chicago has emerged more vulnerable than most due to its longstanding population decline that’s shrinking the tax base, unfunded pension liabilities of more than $30 billion, and a decade-long run of budget deficits. “The vacancies are a concern,” said Chicago Alderman Scott Waguespack, who chairs the city council’s finance committee. “Those sales taxes pay for our programs. If someone buys stuff, that is funding for our budget.” Samir Mayekar, Chicago’s deputy mayor for economic and neighborhood development, said the corridor is “crucially important to the future of the city” and acknowledged the urgency of reinvigorating it.