Homeowners have a nice stockpile of pent-up wealth in their homes and home prices continue to appreciate. And, it seems that every quarter a new startup emerges promising to disrupt the home equity space by giving homeowners a better, faster, cheaper or even debt-free way to tap into the wealth in their homes. And yet, so many Americans appear to be reluctant to take this route. What gives? We talked to a number of experts for their take.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced this week that it is issuing new rules for down payment assistance on mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration. Click the headline for a full breakdown of which rules are changing and why.

A shortage of entry-level homes will stymie the housing market this year, nullifying much of the impact of lower mortgage rates, according to a forecast by Diane Swonk, Grant Thornton chief economist. "The housing market will tread water in 2019 as supply constraints and affordability problems offset any gains from slightly lower mortgage rates," Swonk said.

Prosper, a longtime player in the personal lending space, announced plans in November to enter the mortgage arena with a digital HELOC product that promised to disrupt home equity lending. But there's a chance these plans could be put on hold. The SEC announced Friday that Prosper has agreed to pay a $3 million fine to settle charges that it misled to investors by reporting inflated returns.

In this installment of Marketer Intel, we talk with Keosha Burns, head of public relations at Chase Home Lending, on the challenges of reaching new buyer groups, specifically Millennials. Keosha built her career in Washington, D.C., joining the industry at the Financial Services Roundtable, then working for nearly five years as the senior manager of media and external relations at Fannie Mae. In her current role at Chase, she leads PR strategy and has an extra passion for first-time homebuyers.

Lenders saw a negative profit margin twice in 2018, even hitting an all-time low in the fourth quarter, and the hurdles are far from over going into 2019. Lenders should stay focused on more value-added products, according to Beth O’Brien, CoreVest Finance president and CEO and 2018 HousingWire Women of Influence winner.

A second class-action lawsuit has been filed in protest of the buyer broker compensation rules set forth by the National Association of Realtors. The suit alleges that NAR and MLS providers violated federal antitrust laws by requiring property sellers to pay the buyer's broker an inflated fee, a claim NAR called "completely without merit" as it vowed to defend its policies in court.

Ally Financial, which all but exited the mortgage business back in 2012, got back into mortgages in earnest in 2016. Now, Ally is taking its mortgage business to the next level by going digital with help from Better.com (formerly known as Better Mortgage). Ally and Better announced Thursday that the companies are partnering to launch a digital mortgage platform for Ally.