Fewer first-time buyers in the housing market, the firing of the FHFA’s inspector general, and the comeback for a historic Salt Lake City theater. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of Nov. 3-7.
Miss: A Tough Market to Break Into. New data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) tracking July 2024 to June 2025 found 21% of home purchases were made by first-time buyers, which is a record low, while the typical age of first-time buyers rose to 40 years old, which is a 40-year high. The median age of repeat buyers was 62, while the median age of all buyers was 59. Jessica Lautz NAR deputy chief economist and vice president of research, warned, “The implications for the housing market are staggering. Today’s first-time buyers are building less housing wealth and will likely have fewer moves over a lifetime as a result.”
Miss: More Tumult at the FHFA. Earlier this week, Reuters reported on the firing of Joe Allen, the acting inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), who was supposedly preparing to send a letter to Congress notifying lawmakers that the agency under Bill Pulte’s directorship was not cooperating with his office. Allen was also reportedly seeking to provide key information to prosecutors in the office of the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia regarding the mortgage fraud charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James. Under the law, those charges should have been generated by Allen’s office and not directly from Pulte. Reuters sourced its coverage from “four people familiar with the matter” – no other media source has confirmed the story and no one at the FHFA will go on the record regarding Allen’s dismissal.
Hit: Fannie Mae 86’s 620. Beginning on Nov. 15, Fannie Mae’s Desktop Underwriter will eliminate the 620 minimum middle credit score requirement that has been used for purchase and refinance loan credit decisions. In a way, it was a long time coming – Freddie Mac dropped that requirement several years ago. That’s not to say anyone with a credit score under 620 is a shoo-in for approval – other credit risk considerations including a borrower’s cash reserves and debt levels are still in place. Bill Pulte, who is also the self-appointed chairman of Fannie Mae, insisted on his personal X account, “Our underwriting standards are the same. As a process matter, to ensure two scores can be used and not just one, we eliminated requirement for FICO in the infamous ‘guide.’ Big deal for consumers. Small or nothing deal for underwriting.”
Miss: Think Before You Hit the “Send” Button. Sometimes, opinions don’t need to be shared. The Real Deal reports that Scott Panzer, a top commercial broker in the New York City office of JLL, was fired on Wednesday for his none-too-positive views about New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and his Muslim faith. Peter Riguardi, president of JLL’s New York office, sent an officewide memo urging his team to “give him a chance to lead and maybe for those of us who doubt him, he will surprise us.” Panzer reportedly responded the Riguardi’s comments sounded “eerily similar to what much of Germany and Europe said about you know who back in 1938.” He also warned that the city would soon be polluted by five-times-a-day public calls to Islamic prayer. Well, you know the old saying about what to do if you can’t say something nice?
Miss: Troubling Statistics. A total of 32,321 housing discrimination complaints were filed nationwide during 2024, according to the new Fair Housing Trends Report published by the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA). The majority of the complaints (54.6%) involved disability related discrimination, followed by complaints related to race, national origin, sex, familial status, and religion. Complaints based on national origin rose 8.45% from the previous year, marking the highest number since 2018. The NFHA warned that discrimination could become more widespread since the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity now has one-third of the staff it had when President Trump took office in January. That may have been one cut too many during the giddy DOGE period of the start of the Trump administration – let’s hope the complaint numbers decline in the next few years.
Hit: Back on the Big Screen. There’s great real estate and cultural news out of Utah as the Salt Lake Film Society shared its plans to reopen and expand Salt Lake City’s historic Tower Theatre, which was closed during the pandemic. Building Salt Lake reports a new second story addition would be built to expand the building from 7,561 to 24,455 square feet that will accommodate the addition of four new cinema spaces — one new theater and three microcinemas. The theater’s elegant original appearance when it first opened in 1928 will also be restored. Hopefully, the project will be completed in time for the theater’s 100-year anniversary in 2028.
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
