Experts on strategies servicers should employ in 2022

Today’s HousingWire Daily features an in-depth roundtable discussion on economic and policy trends impacting servicers as well as a look ahead at strategies they should employ in 2022.

During this conversation, CoreLogic’s chief economist Frank Nothaft, its senior leader of advanced delivery engines Sapan Bafna and Pete Carroll, the company’s executive of public policy and industry relations, join Meg Burns, Executive Vice President of the Housing Policy Council, and Mike Blair, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of LoanCare to also discuss what should be included in every servicer’s playbook.

Here’s a short preview of Nothaft’s market outlook for 2022, which has been lightly edited for concision and clarity:

Frank Nothaft:  I’ll be providing an update on the macroeconomic backdrop, as well as how it pertains to the housing and mortgage markets…Well, let’s start off with economic growth. In terms of our recovery in 2021, economic growth is really actually quite strong here. We’re expecting about 6% economic growth this year, which would be the fastest annual growth rate since 1984. This is thanks in large part to a very strong fiscal policy response and monetary policy accommodation by the Federal Reserve Board. The Fed has done a lot in terms of keeping short term interest rates as close to zero as possible. And on top of that, they have a combinative quantitative easing program, which is fancy words for saying they’re buying up a lot of treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities. We also have an investor with deep pockets like the Fed coming into the capital markets and buying up lots of bonds and mortgage-backed securities, which helps to raise the price and push the yields down lower. And indeed, that’s what we’ve seen in the market as well. So, for economic growth, we’re expecting 4% growth in 2022, which should continue to push the unemployment rate lower. We also expect the unemployment rate to be down to about 4.7% by the end of this year and down to about 3.6% at the end of 2022. I mentioned the accommodative monetary policy from the Federal Reserve Board, and that has really helped push mortgage rates down to record low rock bottom, dirt, cheap left, cheap levels. And that has really helped to promote the recovery that we have seen in the housing market. And indeed, spark not only the rise in home sales and refinance boom, but also the double digit rise in home prices that we have seen over the past year. For the last 12 months, the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate has averaged less than 3%. It’s still running about 2.8%. For prime credit borrowers in the marketplace, incredibly low levels. We do anticipate mortgage rates will rise gradually over the course of the next year.

HousingWire Daily examines the most compelling articles reported across HW Media. Each afternoon, we provide our listeners with a deeper look into the stories coming across our newsrooms that are helping Move Markets Forward. Hosted by the HW team and produced by Alcynna Lloyd and Elissa Branch.