eXp World Holdings and Kind Lending launch SUCCESS Lending, a new residential lending platform

eXp World Holdings, the holding company for eXp Realty, one of the fastest-growing residential and commercial real estate companies in the world, today announced a new joint venture with Kind Lending, a rapidly growing nationwide residential mortgage provider, to establish SUCCESS Lending.

The JV is the brainchild of two well-known Glenns in the industry. Housing and lending veterans, Glenn Sanford (eXp) and Glenn Stearns (Kind) have a shared vision of innovating with top achievers in the mortgage industry to improve the overall homebuying experience. This is the result of that!

This new venture will enlist expert loan officers, currently working with top eXp agents, to provide lending solutions to consumers engaged in the homebuying journey.

“We are taking a collaborative approach to home lending that will connect an ecosystem of expert real estate and mortgage professionals,” said Glenn Sanford, Founder, Chairman and CEO of eXp World Holdings in a statement. “Our mission is to help people find, own and sell homes. It started by reimagining the real estate brokerage from the ground up for real estate professionals and now we are focused on establishing a high-quality network of lending professionals to guide consumers through the mortgage process as well.” 

“Our agents are seeking a synergistic mortgage solution that provides greater efficiencies and clearer communication for their customers. SUCCESS Lending was formed to fill that need,” he added.

Kind Lending, founded in 2019, originated nearly $4 billion in its first 12 months, and the Scotsman Guide ranked it the 22nd largest lender in the first quarter of 2021. 

The company and its leadership are dedicated to a customer/client-centric model based on transparency and integrity in mortgage lending standards with a unique value proposition built on a platform of kindness.

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🤣 MEME of the day by Grace Jacques 🤣

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—-> U.S. Properties with Foreclosure Filings in First Six Months of 2021 Hit All-Time Low of 65,082

ATTOM Data Solutions, licensor of the nation’s most comprehensive foreclosure data and parent company to RealtyTrac, the largest online marketplace for foreclosure and distressed properties, released its Midyear 2021 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows there were a total of 65,082 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — in the first six months of 2021. 

That figure is down 61 percent from the same time period a year ago and down 78 percent from the same time period two years ago.

“The government’s foreclosure moratorium and mortgage forbearance program have created an unprecedented situation – historically high numbers of seriously delinquent loans and historically low levels of foreclosure activity,” said Rick Sharga, executive Vice President of RealtyTrac, an ATTOM company. “With the moratorium scheduled to end on July 31, and half of the remaining borrowers in forbearance scheduled to exit that program over the next six months, we should start to get a more accurate read on the level of financial distress the pandemic has caused for homeowners across the country.”

—> Housing market starting to shift as newly listed homes surpass 2019 levels

Recent data from Seattle-based Redfin Corp. found the number of homes newly listed for sale surpassed 2019 levels during the four weeks that ended July 4. That’s the first time this year that’s happened.

Homebuying demand has also recently — somewhat — tapered off, according to pending sales data, Redfin’s Homebuyer Demand Index and Mortgage Bankers Association’s survey of number of mortgage applications.

Realtor[dot]com found similar indications in its June housing market report. Newly listed homes were up 5.5% nationally year over year, and 11.7% higher in large metros in that same time period.

Although pending home sales were up 17% year over year, Redfin says it was the smallest increase in almost a year, since the four-week period ending July 19, 2020. Pending sales were down 6% from the four-week period ending May 30, compared to a 3% decrease in the same period in 2019.

Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, said this is a new phenomenon in the current housing market, which has seen skyrocketing prices, bidding wars and not nearly enough inventory to keep pace with demand.

—> Bidding wars finally start to decline

The cutthroat conditions across the U.S. real estate market are showing more signs of easing, offering some welcome news for buyers who can expect less of an uphill battle when it comes to securing a new home, according to a report Tuesday from Redfin. 

In June, 65% of offers made through Redfin agents faced bidding wars—down from 72.1% in May and a peak of 74.1% in April, the brokerage and online property portal said. 

The pandemic prompted a frenzied property market across the country, driven by a lack of homes for sale, an exodus away from densely populated city centers and location flexibility resulting from remote work. 

But after months of heated conditions, the market is starting to come back to earth. 

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🔥 How appraisals can make or break the borrow experience🔥

With Josh Pitts, Brian Zitin, Keith Collins, & Scott Ask

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Yesterday Rise&Shred brought you the best states for doing business, so now here are the cheapest states to live in. [Spoiler: Deep south.]

We won’t belabor the point of such as list much further… except to say that millennials may want to take note —> as in almost every way measurable, millennials in the U.S. are doing worse financially than the generations that came before them.

In short, the aging millennial population is running out of time to build wealth. (Bloomberg metered paywall.)

Why?

Fewer millennials own homes than their parents did at their age. They have more debt — especially student debt. They simply aren’t as wealthy.

Now, if predictions of a long, post-Covid economic boom are to be believed, this may be the last opportunity an entire generation has to build wealth before heading off into retirement.

One reason for the slipping opportunity to build $$$??? 

Yup. You guess it. Housing.

Some economists predicted millennials would avoid buying homes after the 2008 housing market crash. They haven’t, but their homeownership rates are lower than previous generations at the same point in their lives: 61% for older millennials, 68% for middle-age Gen Xers and 66% for middle-age Boomers.

One culprit could be housing prices, which have increased — especially compared with earnings. Millennials are paying a median of $328,000 on homes. Baby boomers only had to spend $216,000 — adjusted for inflation — in 1989. Wages, on the other hand, have only risen 20%.

The share of millennials living with their parents is also significantly higher than in previous generations. “Conceptually, that could help their wealth accumulation because they’d be paying less for rent and they could save more,” said Gale of Brookings, a co-author of the NBER working paper. “But in practical terms of what happens is it’s an indicator of lack of economic status.”

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