Every day that government offices remain shuttered will delay an ever-larger fraction of mortgage closings, industry leaders say, jeopardizing mortgage and interest-rate approvals and spooking sellers. About 15,000 new home mortgages and 18,000 refinancings on average are completed across the country each day.
Even if this ends tomorrow, there is such a backlog that the delays will continue for months. Before when the other shutdowns happened it was a different world. The regulatory structure and document checks required did not exist. Because of this the furloughs at the IRS might have the greatest impact.