Housing News Podcast: UWM’s Alex Elezaj talks increases in conforming loan limits and originations

The Housing News Podcast is a weekly wrap of the top news stories by HousingWire CEO Clayton Collins.

Each week, HousingWire interviews financial services experts who can help make sense of the latest headlines, sponsored by our partners at Arch MI.

This week, Alex Elezaj, the chief strategy officer at United Wholesale Mortgage, discusses the impact low-interest rates are projected to have on home lending. Additionally, Elezaj explains what the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s decision to increase loan limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could mean for the mortgage industry.

Here’s more detail on the topics of discussion this week:

Low mortgage rates will push home lending this year to the highest level since the year before the financial crisis, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in a forecast. The volume for mortgages to purchase homes probably will total $1.27 trillion, the highest since the peak of the housing bubble in 2006, according to the group’s Nov. 20 forecast. Refinancing probably will reach $796 billion, the most since 2016, MBA said.

This week, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced it is raising the conforming loan limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to more than $510,000. In most of the U.S., the 2020 maximum conforming loan limit will be raised to $510,400, up from 2019’s level to $484,350. This marks the fourth straight year that the FHFA has increased the conforming loan limits after not increasing them for an entire decade from 2006 to 2016.

And here are links to the topics discussed:

1) Low mortgage rates will push home lending to 12-year high
https://develop.housingwire.com/articles/low-mortgage-rates-will-push-home-lending-to-12-year-high/

2) Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac loan limit increases to more than $510,000
https://develop.housingwire.com/articles/fannie-mae-freddie-mac-loan-limit-increases-to-more-than-510000/