The 20 best metros for homeownership

The top five metropolitan areas, Raleigh, North Carolina; Charlotte, North Carolina; St. Louis, Missouri; Nashville, Tennessee and Atlanta, Georgia, have an average five-year median home value appreciation of 48.49%. The average homeownership rate in these metros is 67.89%. Read on to see which metros are in the top 20 and how they fared.

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Rithm's latest buy could drive mortgage company spinout

Rithm Capital's proposed $639 million purchase of Sculptor Capital Management increases the likelihood for a near-term offering of its mortgage banking business, a report from BTIG said. The deal to acquire the alternative asset manager for $11.15 per share follows on the heels of Rithm's purchase of a $1.4 billion Marcus consumer loan portfolio from Goldman Sachs. "We think buying Sculptor strongly supports the likelihood for Rithm to further maneuver by exploring a spinout of its mortgage originator/servicer in the near to medium-term," said Eric Hagen, an analyst at BTIG, in a report.

Mr. Cooper's Home Point Capital offer gets a deadline extension

A Mr. Cooper subsidiary has moved a key deadline for its parent company's purchase of Home Point Capital out by another week, delaying the close of a $324 million dollar acquisition. Heisman Merger Sub Inc. has now given shareholders until July 31 to respond to a tender offer related to the deal in which Mr. Cooper would acquire more than $1 billion servicing rights to add to its growing portfolio. Investors who have already tendered their shares don't need to take further action. A previous extension netted the acquiring company an incremental gain in shares, but not enough to push the deal forward.

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'Nonbank SIFI designations would be ill-suited for servicers'

Mortgage and housing trade groups this week pushed back against a Financial Stability Oversight Council proposal aimed at reverting its review process to one in which it would be easier to designate nonbank servicers and others as systemically-important financial institutions. Housing Policy Council President Ed DeMarco said in a letter that his group opposed the move away from the existing "activities-based approach," in which other oversight agencies are the first line of defense before labeling an individual company a SIFI, because that has had demonstrable benefits."

Investors pivot toward rentals, but home flippers are more optimistic

A majority of real estate investors see conditions stabilizing or improving following recent market disruptions, but the past year's developments are leading a majority to focus on using properties as rentals, new research found. "Despite higher financing costs and the downturn in home sales, investors continue to be pretty resilient, with almost two-thirds believing that today's environment is about the same or better than it was a year ago," said Rick Sharga, CEO of market intelligence firm CJ Patrick Co., in a press release.

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