The Shutdown's After Effects on Housing Market

The government closure that finally ended late last week was beginning to put a noticeable  crimp in the recovering housing market.

Housing lenders rely on a variety of government data, such as verification of borrowers' income, which are unavailable with the partial closure of the Internal Revenue Service and other agencies. The mortgage industry has found creative ways to work around the shutdown. Banks are getting data from other sources. Sometimes they're simply taking the risk of making loans without some information.

Nevertheless, the shutdown is delaying loans around the country. And some experts warn that home lending could have been more severely disrupted if the political stalemate in Washington persisted much longer.

The chart below, showing rate projections for the 2014, was prepared just before the shutdown.