(RECAP: Freddie Mac published an official list of approved eMortgage vendors to better streamline the mortgage process and to help encourage the use of digital mortgages. Despite taking a long time to go digital, the industry is quickly evolving and growing to bring technology into the process. The list of companies meets Freddie’s requirements for making, signing and storing electronic promissory notes. Commonly called eNotes, they detail the repayment obligation of the borrower to the lender. Freddie clarified that with the exception of eMortgages and the related eNotes, sellers don’t need special approvals to use electronic documents as long as their procedures meet the requirements laid out in Freddie’s Seller/Servicer Guide. But, Samuel Oliver, vice president of transformation management for the Single-Family Business, said the eNote is unique.)

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(RECAP: Up to $20 million could be pumped into residential housing projects in Marion by 2018 with the town seeing the greatest housing development since the 1980s and perhaps even since the post-World War II boom. That potential comes as encouragement to Marion officials who see housing needs as one of the most critical issues facing the community. Marion Redevelopment and Housing Authority executive director Charlie Harrington presented the first stages of a project to help address housing. He was asking the council to give its OK to the authority’s plot to form a non-profit LLC to seek grants to do an in-depth marketing survey and eventually develop a new housing complex featuring one-, two- and three-bedroom units to serve mixed-income residents, generally falling at 80 to 100 percent of low to moderate income levels based on Smyth County’s median income of $48,000. The council gave its approval to forming the non-profit LLC as a subset of the housing authority. The project is in early stages, still researching funding and site options.)

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(RECAP: The FHFA today announced that the maximum conforming loan limits for mortgages bought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2017 will increase. In most of the country, the 2017 maximum loan limit for one-unit properties will be $424,100, an increase from $417,000. This will be the first increase in the baseline loan limit since 2006. In higher-cost areas, higher loan limits will be in effect. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) established the baseline loan limit of $417,000 and requires this limit to be adjusted each year to reflect the changes in the national average home price. But, after a period of declining home prices, HERA made it clear the baseline loan limit could not rise again until the average U.S. home price returned to its pre-decline level. Until this year, the average U.S. home price remained below the level achieved in the third quarter of 2007. The expanded-data HPI value for the third quarter of 2016 was roughly 1.7 percent above the value for the third quarter of 2007, and thus the baseline loan limit will increase by that percentage.)

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