VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Despite a slight dip in average interest rates for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, weekly mortgage demand remains stagnant, with fewer applicants seeking loans for refinancing or home purchases.

Last week, the 5.6% decrease in total mortgage applications was attributed to individuals hesitating to buy properties due to high mortgage rates.

Online marketplace mortgage financer LedInvest grew revenues by 133% in 2016 and turned a profit of £3.4 million accounts show.

The lender must pay settlement for its misconduct in selling securities backed by troubled mortgage in 2008. The agreement reached Monday.

The millennial generation, those in the 18 - 34 age range, have been slow to enter the home buying market. Sidelined by student loan debts, high unemployment, and tighter mortgage credit, millennials have a different outlook on home ownership as other generations have in the past.

The world's oldest bank Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA has announced encouraging levels of capital. The Italian banking major's common equity Tier-I ratio is up at 11.7 percent by the end of September from 10.7 percent in June.

The mortgage processing software company Ellie Mae Inc., showed a better-than-expected result on the company's third-quarter financial report, beating expectations. Ellie Mae's revenue jumped 61% to $68.9 million, beating the analysts expectations of 46% growth. The company's shares rose by 5.84% in the past week and 8.13% for the last 4 weeks.

America's total wealth in Q2 increased even more, thanks to the stronger housing market. The value of owner-occupied real estate hit $21.5 trillion, up more than $400 billion from Q1 and nearly $4.5 trillion since the low point in 2011, according to the Federal Reserve report on Friday, as reported by CNNMoney.

As the supply for homes being sold goes down, statistics suggest an increase of potential buyers. This could lead to boom in house prices. Statistics from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) this week expects to see a surge in potential new home buyers as reported by This Is Money. As supply of houses being sold is dwindling, another boom in house prices could well be on the way.

The latest projects indicating job gains in August are giving a much wider scope for US Fed rate hike speculation. According to research firms, non-farm payrolls were up 220,000 in August from 215,000 in July. Unemployment rate is also at 5.2 percent indicating near seven-and-a-half-year low.

At a time when the US construction sector is showing renewed activity, the rise in construction spending is boosting the US gross domestic product (GDP). At this juncture, home builders are upbeat on the prospects in the real estate and construction sectors as availability of loans is longer scarce.

Applications for U.S. home mortgages fell last week as interest rates rose to the highest level since March, an industry group said on Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve is sketching out plans to prevent an abrupt contraction in its massive balance sheet next year, when some $500 billion in bonds expire and risk disrupting markets and the U.S. economic recovery.

China's drumroll of policy support for its flagging housing market has met an unlikely foe: banks. Beijing has tried to revive a flagging housing market as it looks to arrest an economic slowdown, but banks are increasingly worried about bad debts and are not passing on policy steps like interest rate cuts and lower downpayment requirements to home buyers.

China's annual economic growth likely slowed to a six-year low of 7 percent in the first quarter as demand at home and abroad faltered, fanning expectations that authorities will have to roll out more policy stimulus to avert a sharper slowdown.