Basketball Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo is undergoing treatment in Atlanta for a brain tumor, the NBA announced Saturday. Mutombo has been one of the NBA’s global ambassadors for years, and recently appeared at Hall of Fame enshrinement events in Springfield, Massachusetts, and a pair of preseason games in Saitama, Japan. He also appeared with […]
Two women have been charged with criminal damage after climate change protesters threw soup on Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery, British police said Saturday. A video posted by the Just Stop Oil campaign group, which has been holding protests for the last two weeks in the British capital, showed two of […]
An Iranian filmmaker said the Islamic republic barred him from travelling to the London Film Festival over his support for the protest movement sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini that he called a “great moment in history.” “I was prevented by the Iranian authorities from boarding my flight to London on Friday,” Mani Haghighi […]
The Mortgage Bankers Association announced Thursday it promoted Joel Kan to vice president, deputy chief economist. Kan has worked at the association since 2006, rising from survey specialist to associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting in 2015. In his new role, Kan will lead the macroeconomic and mortgage market forecasts and oversee MBA’s […]
Robbie Coltrane, the baby-faced comedian and character actor whose hundreds of roles included a crime-solving psychologist on the TV series “Cracker” and the gentle half-giant Hagrid in the “Harry Potter” movies, has died. He was 72. Coltrane’s agent, Belinda Wright, said he died Friday at a hospital in his native Scotland, and but did not […]
Twitter has become somewhat ubiquitous in today’s social media landscape, with more than 200 million users worldwide. The timeline moves about as quickly as the news does, which is why it can be such a valuable resource for those trying to keep up with current events. Mortgage professionals are no exception – whether you find […]
JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Co., two of the nation’s largest banks, each faced a double-digit decline in their mortgage origination volumes in the third quarter of 2022. And the coming days don’t look any kinder: the banks’ top executives said on Friday the landscape remains challenging due to macroeconomic and geopolitical issues. That’s […]
WASHINGTON—Today, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona announced the newest appointments to the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the country’s only ongoing, nationally representative assessment of student achievement. The newest board members include a fourth-grade teacher, an eighth-grade teacher, a high school principal, and a parent leader. Former North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue is […]
The Mortgage Bankers Association and fellow trade group the Black Homeownership Collaborative have joined the chorus of voices imploring HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge to reduce mortgage insurance premiums (MIPs) and suspend life-of-loan requirements for borrowers with FHA-insured loans. The trade groups last week sent a letter to Fudge noting that since the start of the […]
Students look to their college as a trusted source of information as they determine how to pay for tuition, housing, books, and other basic needs. In today’s environment, students are facing additional financial challenges coinciding with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising interest rates, and inflation. Each year, millions of students look to their […]
On Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation came in hotter than expected, and people are scared that the Federal Reserve will now be more aggressive with their rate hikes. Personally, I believe the Fed knows that rental inflation data can lag so at this point of the […]
With mortgage rates surging to the 7% mark, industry observers believe that a new refi wave won’t return for several years. Lenders have started to prepare their businesses for at least two more years of reduced production. The latest weekly survey data from Freddie Mac shows the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage surged 26 basis points from […]
In the reflection, a mortgage executive in 2022 sees shades of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s. ” data-medium-file=”https://www.housingwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Saving-and-Loan-Crisis-art.png?w=300″ data-large-file=”https://www.housingwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Saving-and-Loan-Crisis-art.png?w=1024″ width=”1200″ height=”675″ src=”https://www.housingwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Saving-and-Loan-Crisis-art.png?w=1024″ alt=”Saving-and-Loan-Crisis-art” class=”wp-image-366089″ srcset=”https://www.housingwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Saving-and-Loan-Crisis-art.png 1200w, https://www.housingwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Saving-and-Loan-Crisis-art.png?resize=150,84 150w, https://www.housingwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Saving-and-Loan-Crisis-art.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://www.housingwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Saving-and-Loan-Crisis-art.png?resize=768,432 768w, https://www.housingwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Saving-and-Loan-Crisis-art.png?resize=1024,576 1024w, https://www.housingwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Saving-and-Loan-Crisis-art.png?resize=600,338 600w” sizes=”(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px”>In the reflection, a mortgage executive sees faint images of the […]
Home Point Financial Corp. has terminated a master repurchase agreement and securities contract with Credit Suisse First Boston Mortgage Capital and Morgan Stanley Bank, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The financing arrangement was struck on June 3, 2020 with the maximum aggregate borrowing authority totaling $300 million, according to Home Point’s […]
The forecast for the housing market in 2023 gets worse by the month, with the latest report predicting a million-plus decline in existing home sales. Fannie Mae‘s Economic and Strategic Research (ESR) Group now forecasts total single-family home sales to decline 18.1% to 5.64 million units this year from 2021, a further downward revision from September’s […]
Black Knight announced the integration of its digital servicing platform and its Surefire CRM, which it says will enhance customer engagement and retention. Servicing Digital, offered as an app or responsive web design, allows customers to easily access their loan- and home-related information, as well as perform self-service capabilities. Surefire is a mortgage-specific marketing automation […]
Qatar World Cup organizers on Wednesday warned fans to brace for “congestion” in the first two weeks of the tournament when the peak number of supporters will be packing the Gulf state’s capital. Private cars will be banned from many streets and residents near some stadiums will need permits to get to their homes, organizers […]
Mortgage demand continue to decline amid surging home loan rates, according to the latest survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The mortgage composite index for the week ending Oct. 7 fell 2% from the prior week and 68.7% compared to the same period in 2021, on an adjusted basis, the survey shows. The refinance index decreased 1.8% from […]
Moon Mortgage, a crypto-backed mortgage provider, on Tuesday announced raising a $3.5 million seed round, led primarily by Cadenza Ventures and CoinFund. The funds will be utilized to finance its lending product, CryptoMortgage. Moon Mortgage’s CryptoMortgages will allow investors to take out loans against their digital assets. The product also takes the investors’ digital assets […]
Angela Lansbury, the big-eyed, scene-stealing British actress who kicked up her heels in the Broadway musicals “Mame” and “Gypsy” and solved endless murders as crime novelist Jessica Fletcher in the long-running TV series “Murder, She Wrote,” has died. She was 96. Lansbury died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles, according to a statement from […]
Mortgage Coach, a mortgage platform that enables lenders to educate borrowers with home loan presentations, announced that its platform will be integrated with Insellerate, a customer relationship management (CRM) platform. The integration streamlines the sales process by enabling loan officers to generate and customize total cost analysis loan presentations with contact data directly from the […]
The first Walmart-based in-store branch from retail mortgage cooperative Lenders One opened this week in Newton, New Jersey. And two additional mortgage branches are expected to open in Walmarts in New Jersey and Florida within the next 30 days. Family First Funding, a Toms River, New Jersey-based retail lender, opened a branch in the Walmart […]
As mortgage rates rose more than 90 basis points to finish September at 6.72%, overall rate lock volumes predictably fell sharply – down 10% from August and almost 60% off levels from 2021. Falling rate lock dollar volume was driven by a 26.2% drop in cash-out refinance locks in September from the previous month, which […]
Atlanta-based Angel Oak Companies instituted a round of layoffs at its retail mortgage company on Friday, not long after trimming the workforce in its wholesale and correspondent business. The latest jobs cut was at Angel Oak Home Loans, which reduced its headcount by 57 employees, comprising 15% of the total, a spokesperson told HousingWire. The […]
Ohio-based mortgage lender Lower imposed a round of layoffs last week due to market conditions, affecting 6% of its workforce, according to a spokesperson for the company. “We’ve right-sized areas of our business impacted the most by this volatile market, such as refinance, operations, training, and recruiting,” Lindsey LeBerth, the company’s director of communications, wrote […]
As awareness grows around the world about the problem of food waste, one culprit in particular is drawing scrutiny: “best before” labels. Manufacturers have used the labels for decades to estimate peak freshness. Unlike “use by” labels, which are found on perishable foods like meat and dairy, “best before” labels have nothing to do with […]
Despite continued home price appreciation and a volatile mortgage rate environment that has resulted in the least affordable housing market in decades, there remains a minority of consumers who still feel that now is a good time to buy a home. According to Fannie Mae‘s latest Home Purchase Sentiment Index, 19% of consumers feel that […]
On Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 263,000 new jobs were added in September. While that growth seems like good news in this economy, it runs directly counter to what the Federal Reserve wants to see. And the even worse news for the Fed was that the unemployment rate fell back to 3.5%. That […]
Guaranteed Rate this week walked away from negotiations to acquire Finance of America’s forward mortgage retail channel, which may result in FoA closing the division, sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations told HousingWire. Meanwhile, FoA confirmed Friday that Finance of America Mortgage LLC (FAM), its forward mortgage company, will no longer fund and purchase […]
South Korea’s military appears to want to conscript members of the K-pop supergroup BTS for mandatory military duties, as the public remains sharply divided over whether they should be given exemptions. Lee Ki Sik, commissioner of the Military Manpower Administration, told lawmakers on Friday that it’s “desirable” for BTS members to fulfill their military duties […]
Switzerland-based global lender Credit Suisse Group AG had a rough start this week after its stock was beaten down by 11%, the value of its riskiest debt fell more than 10% and the cost of purchasing derivatives insuring against the bank defaulting rose sharply. The bank’s stock eventually recovered most of the losses by the end of the day […]
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to three recipients: Ales Bialiatski, one of the initiators of the democracy movement that emerged in Belarus in the mid-1980s; and two human rights groups – Memorial, a Russian organization, and the Center for Civil Liberties, a Ukrainian group. Last year’s Peace Prize was awarded to Maria Ressa […]
The latest weekly survey data from Freddie Mac shows the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage decreased four basis points last week to 6.66%, after jumping 40 basis points in the previous week, reflecting volatility due to the ongoing economic uncertainty. But qualifying borrowers can get lower rates with jumbo mortgages, as the spreads between these loans and […]
Fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, two mothers find themselves in an unusual place, Nu Boyana Film Studios, in Sofia, Bulgaria. Eastern Europe’s largest film company, it has participated in the production of over 400 Hollywood films. This moving work, Kyiv-Sofia-Hollywood, follows these two women as they rebuild their lives in a new country and […]
Keller Mortgage, the lending arm of real estate holding company kwx, is the latest lender to be hit by the rapidly decreasing demand for mortgages. On Monday, the firm underwent a “mass layoff,” according to posts by former Keller Mortgage employees on LinkedIn. This is at least the second round of layoffs at Keller Mortgage […]
Pennymac executives say their goal is to become a “dominant player” in wholesale. On Thursday, the publicly traded multichannel lender launched a new technology platform for brokers called “POWER+,” a key step toward generating more broker business. “The platform was designed and developed using direct broker feedback, which shaped our workflow and functionality,” said Kim […]
French author Annie Ernaux has won this year’s Nobel Prize for literature. The Nobel committee said Thursday that Ernaux was chosen for “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.” Her works include “La Place” (A Man’s Place), about her relationship with her father and […]
In an email sent on Tuesday, loanDepot CEO Frank Martell reminded staffers that in times like these, there are “no easy answers.” “We must deal with the realities of our market, face the future with determination, and focus on our strengths while addressing our challenges as a team,” he wrote. To that end, Martell detailed […]
A tender and touching letter that author John Steinbeck penned to his teenage son, offering fatherly advice after the young man confided that he was in love for the first time, is going up for auction. Boston-based RR Auction says the handwritten draft of a letter to his eldest son, Thomas — then 14 — […]
FHFA Director Sandra Thompson The U.S. housing market has faced periods of high interest rates, home price appreciation and lack of inventory before. But these forces all happening at once makes the current landscape especially volatile and challenging, according to Sandra Thompson, the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. “If you put things in […]
PROTECT YOURSELF FROM SCAMS INVOLVING STUDENT LOAN DEBT RELIEF YOU ARE YOUR BEST PROTECTION AGAINST SCAMMERS DON’T pay anyone who contacts you with promises of debt relief or loan forgiveness. YOU DO NOT NEED TO PAY ANYONE TO OBTAIN DEBT RELIEF. The application will be free and easy to use when it opens in October. DON’T […]
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in late July creating federal minimum standards, which would allow notaries nationwide to perform remote online notarizations (RON). Title industry experts say it would be a game-changer for the mortgage space, but they expect some resistance. “Actually, I feel remote online notarizations could streamline the process for […]
Today, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) announced 19 Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) awards totaling $110 million and four new grant awards for the 2022 Equity Assistance Center (EAC) program totaling more than $6.5 million. details ⇒ BusinessMediaguide.Com portal received this content from this noted web source: Website of U.S. Department of Education
Oscar-winning actors Marion Cotillard and Juliette Binoche, as well as other French stars of screen and music, filmed themselves chopping off locks of their hair in a video posted Wednesday in support of protesters in Iran. “For freedom,” Binoche said as she hacked a large handful of hair off the top of her head with […]
Mortgage applications for the week ending Sept. 30 decreased 14.2% from the prior week, according to the latest survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association. On an unadjusted basis, the mortgage composite index decreased 14% compared with the previous week. The refinance index decreased 18% from the previous week and was 86% lower than the same […]