(RECAP: Investors gunning for an interest rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve may be looking in the incorrect direction, as millennials have more control of rates than the central bank, the head of a U.S.-based investment firm told CNBC. “The Federal Reserve no longer sets interest rates in the U.S.— 25-35 year-olds set interest rates,” Bill Smead, CEO and CIO of Smead Capital Management, told CNBC on Monday. He said this was because, for first time in 60 years, most Americans had not taken out a mortgage by the age of 30. The average first-time homebuyer in the U.S is now 33-years-ancient, according to a survey from 2015 by real estate marketplace Zillow. A cycle of house buying, credit demand and interest rate rise could be set in motion once 25-35 year-olds settle down and raise families.)

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(RECAP: Loudoun’s affordable housing problem is no secret. But the problem is partly self-inflicted. Loudoun’s Affordable Dwelling Unit (ADU) program sets price restrictions on 12.5 percent of units in certain rezoning requests for new developments, but the rules don’t line up with what is required for grants from VHDA or HUD. This means that the money for the housing programs only goes so far—and as anyone who has tried to rent or buy in Loudoun on a moderate income can tell you it doesn’t go far enough. Other jurisdictions can double their money or better by leveraging grant funds. In the past 10 years, VHDA has sent $358 million to Northern Virginia, but only five percent of that, under $18 million, has gone to Loudoun. All of that was to projects led by the non-profit Windy Hill Foundation outside the county’s ADU program. But an initiative introduced by Supervisor Suzanne M. Volpe (R-Algonkian) directs the county staff to make quick-fix technical amendments to the county’s ADU ordinance to allow for state and federal grant money.)

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(RECAP: Quicken Loans won’t back down in its battle against the U.S. Department of Justice, standing firm on the thought that it is in the business for the consumer. The top FHA lender does have consumers on its side. J.D. Power has named Quicken Loans the highest in customer satisfaction for primary mortgage origination for six straight years — 2010 through 2015, and also ranked the company the highest in the nation for client satisfaction among mortgage servicers in 2014 and 2015. In the latest update on its fight with the government, Quicken Loans CEO Bill Emerson accused the government of trying to have to both ways. “The [Obama] administration says, ‘let’s lend to more people,’ on the other hand, ‘let’s go after lenders and hold them accountable and make them pay tons of money.”)

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