Rates, and PMI Cancelled? I Read the New Housing Order | Monday Moves

Happy Monday. Here is the short version of what I covered in this week's update, and a couple of things I would rather you hear from me than from a headline.

Mortgage rates averaged 7.24% on Freddie Mac's weekly survey as of the week before I recorded this, and the Fed held rates, which is about what we expected. The bigger noise this election season is the talk about mortgage insurance being removed automatically, and about cutting MI on VA loans. I read the order. None of that is happening right now.

What the order actually says on mortgage insurance is that the FHFA should consider setting up a pilot. Until a pilot exists, nobody's PMI falls off because of it, and nothing changes for a buyer today. On the VA side, the language covers loans that VA makes itself, and a loan made through a lender is not in that group. If a client asks you about it, the honest answer is that it is a talking point for now. I would rather tell people that than let them plan around something that is not real.

The change that did arrive that day is the new appraisal format. November 2, 2026 was the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac deadline for conventional appraisals to be submitted on UAD 3.6, which is a very different appraisal process. The agencies offered a temporary exception to lenders that were not ready, and my company is using that delay, and a lot of the appraisers we work with told us they are not going to do it at all. If you are a buyer or an agent, ask your lender which way they are going before you go into contract.

Down payment assistance is the part I am happiest about. We are seeing a few new programs come out, and they matter most where home values are not over about $600,000 at the median. In Shasta County, a buyer we work with found a county down payment assistance program and was fully approved. She is a single teacher and would not have been able to buy without it. She is getting $90,000 toward her down payment. I have not seen programs like this in years.

We also had a buyer who was referred to us after another lender turned her down on a down payment assistance program. One of my team members switched her to a different credit scoring model, Vantage Score, which not every lender is using, and it worked. I tell agents the same thing all the time: if your client struggles with credit or gets a turn down, on any type of loan, call us before you give up. I think we are up to about 47 loans this year that were turned down somewhere else and that we found a solution for. I am not saying that to sell myself. It is just the number.

If you are a buyer in Redding or anywhere in Shasta County and you have been told you cannot make it work, it may be worth a second look. Start with down payment assistance, or get your rate and tell us what happened the first time. MortgageOne is now licensed in 49 states, and I have been in lending for 25 years.