The end of the Trump administration is the end of the best hope for hedge-fund investors who bet that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would one day be returned to private hands (Wall Street Journal)

The trade seemed likely to pay off four years ago, when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin stated his goal was to move the companies out of government control. But as the months passed, the likelihood declined significantly. Last week, Mr. Mnuchin said it wasn’t happening on his watch. The most commonly traded class of Fannie’s preferred shares have now fallen more than 40% from mid-November, to near $6. Common shares of Fannie have fallen from $3 at the end of November to $1.83 at Thursday’s close.

Housing activity is slowly gearing up this January following a record end to 2020. All index components but home price growth remained below the pre-holiday pace, but buyer and seller activity improved from the previous week (Realtor)

Median listing prices grew at 15.0 percent over last year, notching 23 consecutive weeks of double-digit price growth…New listings continue to fall behind the year ago pace–registering 22 percent lower this week…Total active inventory continues to decline, dropping 43 percent. A greater decline in overall inventory than in new listings suggest that buyers remain more active in the housing market than sellers. Time on market was 9 days faster than last year. Although the gap is shrinking, homes are still selling faster than they did in January 2020. In other words, buyers have the advantage of lower mortgage rates this year, but they’ll need to make a quick decision when they find a home they like. 

Freddie Mac released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey, showing that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.77% which is a two basis points drop (Freddie Mac)

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.77 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending January 21, 2021, down from last week when it averaged 2.79 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.60 percent. 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.21 percent with an average 0.6 point, down from last week when it averaged 2.23 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 3.04 percent.

Thanks to the economic impact of COVID millions of American homeowners are struggling to keep up with their mortgage payments. As a result, the mortgage delinquency rate has soared according to CoreLogic Loan Performance Insights Report (CoreLogic)

As of October 2020, the serious delinquency rates for Federal Housing Administration (FHA), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and conventional loans were 11.7%, 6.1%, and 3.1%, respectively (Figure 1).[2] The serious delinquency rate increased for all loan types in October 2020 compared with October 2019. In addition, the serious delinquency rate for FHA and VA loans reached a high, surpassing the highs seen post-Great Recession. The serious delinquency rate for FHA loans was above the 2012 delinquent levels by 2 percentage points.

ATTOM Data Solutions released its Q4 Special Coronavirus Report spotlighting county-level housing markets around the United States that are more or less vulnerable to the impact of the virus pandemic (ATTOM Data Solutions)

The report reveals that New Jersey, Illinois, California, Louisiana, New York, Florida and Maryland had 40 of the 50 counties most vulnerable to the economic impact of the pandemic in the fourth quarter of 2020. They included eight suburban counties in the New York City metropolitan area, four around Philadelphia, PA, and two near Washington, D.C. Another six sat in the Chicago, IL, suburbs and two were in the St. Louis, MO area.

A record 25.1% of U.S. homeowners in 2020 have lived in the same home for more than 20 years (Redfin)

In 2020, the typical homeowner had been in their home for 13 years, up from 8.7 years in 2010 and 6.4 years in 2005. That also marks a slight increase from 12.8 years in 2019.