Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

detroitnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 510 posts

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#81

Post by refurb »

nikanj wrote: post #32
refurb wrote: post #30

This is actually a good thing. House cycles exist and it's better to have smaller, more frequent ones than massive ones like 2008. Canada never had a 2008 housing crash. Housing has been on a tear since the early 2000's and the average sale price of a home (nationally) is 2x that of the US despite lower salaries, higher taxes and a lack of 30-year fixed rates. That is a bubble. My opinion is the US market is hot , bu…

If you plot Canadian housing supply vs Canadian city population growth, you get another perspective. Houses are incredibly expensive, because there aren't enough of them

Barrie, Ontario is in the middle of nowhere and houses cost $1M. Same with Kelowna, BC and Halifax, NS has doubled in price. That's not population growth, that's speculation.

The Toronto suburbs are already falling in price and Canada is only ~1 month into 4-5 rate hikes this year. And unlike the US: 1) most mortgages need to be renewed in a much higher interest rate environment and 2) a lot of Canada has recourse loans - they can come after your other assets if you sell you house for less than the loan value. No sending the keys to bank and walking away like in the US.

Toronto and Vancouver cores will correct, but rebound. Small towns and suburbs? It's going to be a bloodbath.

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#82

Post by modo_mario »

oliwarner wrote: post #55
cammikebrown wrote: post #2

Seems like the bubble burst is going to be more sudden than we thought. 30 year mortgages are suddenly at nearly 5.5-6%, listings are sitting on the market for longer, and multiple cities are cracking down on Airbnb.

Whole-term-fixed rates are pretty uncommon in Europe. Fixes of 2, 5 sometimes 10 years are products most providers offer, but as the term increases, the rate shoots up, to offset rate uncertainty. My question is: why would you fix for 30yr when you know you're paying multiple points to offset market uncertainty? Remortgaging every couple of years takes a bit of time, and shopping around, but is much cheaper.

>Whole-term-fixed rates are pretty uncommon in Europe.

Here in Belgium I think most people got those.

>why would you fix for 30yr when you know you're paying multiple points to offset market uncertainty?

Because my rate was 0,98% fixed for 20 years here in Belgium. I'd have done the same if I needed 30 (which is rare here as 20 or 25 is more common) The chances of coming out ahead long term starting out with a higher variable rate are rather slim

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#83

Post by jetti »

I imagine that Rocket increased their workforce by more than 8% between spring of 2020 and now. I work for a mortgage company and layoffs have happened multiple times this year. With rates so low for almost two years the volume increased significantly. In order to deal with that volume the company most certainly had to hire many people and quick. The market conditions can't support keeping those individuals (or at least the number of positions that were added) during the pandemic. People who work the operations jobs (who are behind the scenes helping the loan officer close loans) know the market is cyclical and know that layoffs are a part of the business.

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#84

Post by PinguTS »

apexalpha wrote: post #33
cammikebrown wrote: post #2

Seems like the bubble burst is going to be more sudden than we thought. 30 year mortgages are suddenly at nearly 5.5-6%, listings are sitting on the market for longer, and multiple cities are cracking down on Airbnb.

That's really high compared to Europe! I just bought a new house with 2% on the interest-only part and 1.6% on the annuity part! In the month after rates grew by about 0.5% though. Seems like we hit the bottom and are climbing very slowly.

Less then a year ago the interest rate in Germany was less than 1%. Now we are over 2%. The most increases are since about February. It is not slowly growing. The speed of growing is increasing right now.

I got mine with about 1% interest two years ago and do almost 5% redemption, fixed almost over the whole time. Just 2 years or so left at the end.

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#85

Post by smcl »

apexalpha wrote: post #52
smcl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fixed for the entire duration of the mortgage, and at the rate the commenter mentioned?

Mine is fixed for 20 on a 30 year mortgage but you can always choose between variable, 10 year fixed, 20 year or 30 year. Mortgages are (almost) always 30 years duration. I don't know what country in Europe you can't get fixed rates but it's not the Netherlands, that I know for sure. (Also there really isn't a 'Europe' for these things, every country is different)

Ah so what I meant is that in Czech Republic I have a 30 year mortgage with a rate that is fixed at 1.99% for 5 years, and is then variable (or more likely renegotiated) after that period. I am sure I could have instead gotten a 30 year mortgage with a single rate for the duration, but I suspect it would've been higher than the rate. But if you're at a 2% for 20 years that is pretty great IMO - given that our rates are currently through the roof.

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#86

Post by PinguTS »

oliwarner wrote: post #55
cammikebrown wrote: post #2

Seems like the bubble burst is going to be more sudden than we thought. 30 year mortgages are suddenly at nearly 5.5-6%, listings are sitting on the market for longer, and multiple cities are cracking down on Airbnb.

Whole-term-fixed rates are pretty uncommon in Europe. Fixes of 2, 5 sometimes 10 years are products most providers offer, but as the term increases, the rate shoots up, to offset rate uncertainty. My question is: why would you fix for 30yr when you know you're paying multiple points to offset market uncertainty? Remortgaging every couple of years takes a bit of time, and shopping around, but is much cheaper.

What is your reference of Europe?

In Germany, 15 years, 20 years, and up to 30 years is common. I took 20 years.

A close friend of mine working at a bank has an internal benefit, that the 10 year fixed rate applies for her as a fixed rate for however it takes to pay-off.

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#87

Post by nsteel »

2ion wrote: post #65
oliwarner wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And compared to a couple of years ago, that's really expensive. The mortgage we took out two years ago (2 year fix, ~60% LTV) had a introductory rate of 1.2%. That falls back to 3.something variable in September. We'll probably look for another fixed but current 2yr fixed rates seem to be around 2.3% (plus a £1k application). That's an uncomfortable increase on a big loan. What's interesting is the rates on bigger lo…

That's really interesting. Is it normal in UK (thinking £) to get such an extremely short (introductory) loan and then refinance every few years? In Germany, most people take a 10y fixed rate at least to reduce such risk.

Yes, here 2 and 5 years is the norm. There's talk of longer terms becoming more popular but that's probably just talk due to the current climate of rising rates. I've spoken to a few brokers lately and not one even mentioned anything longer than 5.

It feels like there's a few signs now that the so-called "18-year property cycle" is due to be cut short this time around. I've only recently heard the idea so I'm not sure how it's real it is (outside of their circles that have a vested interested in the timeline it predicts). UK lenders seem to be now toughening lending rules rather than relaxing them as they were "supposed" to. Not sure it's a good time to invest or not!

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#88

Post by raverbashing »

crate_barre wrote: post #41
raverbashing wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AirBnb in NYC is also a fertile ground for scams

Explain. I thought finding a high rated host is enough?

https://www.vox.com/2019/11/14/20961972/airbnb-scam-how-to-s...

Or just google it, there are plenty of examples

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#89

Post by egeozcan »

PinguTS wrote: post #86
oliwarner wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whole-term-fixed rates are pretty uncommon in Europe. Fixes of 2, 5 sometimes 10 years are products most providers offer, but as the term increases, the rate shoots up, to offset rate uncertainty. My question is: why would you fix for 30yr when you know you're paying multiple points to offset market uncertainty? Remortgaging every couple of years takes a bit of time, and shopping around, but is much cheaper.

What is your reference of Europe? In Germany, 15 years, 20 years, and up to 30 years is common. I took 20 years. A close friend of mine working at a bank has an internal benefit, that the 10 year fixed rate applies for her as a fixed rate for however it takes to pay-off.

I'm also in Germany, which bank is that? I didn't find any fixed-rate offer for a 450K flat.

Re: Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks

#90

Post by JetAlone »

Buying a home mortgage is signing yourself over to a lifetime of servitude and uncertainty if you lose your income stream. Buy a property out of pocket to live in and make the most of a DIY life at a fraction of the cost and an odd stress differential, or just keep renting and be agile enough to roll with the punches.
Post reply on HN