Individuals across the country put the American dream of homeownership on standby for the week ending May 13, reducing mortgage application volume by 11% compared to the prior week, as measured by the Mortgage Bankers Association‘s (MBA’s) Market Composite Index. “Mortgage applications decreased for the first time in three weeks, as mortgage rates — despite declining […]
Private equity firm Narrow Gauge Capital (NGC) acquired Inco-Check, LLC, a provider of quality control audit mortgage software and fraud prevention services. Founded in 2000, Irvine, California-based Inco-Check leverages its proprietary web-based platform to support GSE, regulatory agency, and investor requirements. With NGC’s acquisition of Inco-Check, the company aims to enhance loan quality and prevent […]
Orchard, which operates a home-buying and selling platform, wants to expand its customer base of first-time homebuyers by helping them to make a cash-backed offer. Buy with Orchard is the firm’s first product targeted to first-time buyers that provides home shoppers with the cash needed to compete with equity-rich homeowners and investors, the company said. […]
Julia Gordon made a habit of stopping by Ed Golding’s office when he ran the agency that she now leads. During her visits, one thing stood out to Golding, who served as the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s principal deputy assistant secretary from 2015 to 2017. Gordon already possessed a vast knowledge of the […]
The rise in mortgage-related fraud over the past three years was largely due to a surge in online and mobile-only mortgage transactions. The pandemic and growing mobile channel fueled the number of fraud cases with application fraud being a key entrant point for fraudsters, a new report analyzing fraud trends suggests. Fraud costs largely came […]
Servicers’ forbearance portfolio volume dropped in April to a level below 1%, with fewer than half a million borrowers remaining with an active plan, according to the monthly Loan Monitoring Survey conducted by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). That’s good news after the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic hit borrowers hard, making it difficult for Americans to pay […]
As banks and non-bank lenders recently released earnings for the first quarter of 2022, two things became clear: Origination volume plummeted across the board, but those that managed to muster up a good quarter benefited from servicing portfolios. As refinancing became less appealing, lenders also sold off a large portion of mortgage servicing rights (MSRs), […]
Polly, a software-as-service mortgage technology firm that operates a loan-trading platform, integrated with six mortgage insurance providers to streamline the mortgage process for loan officers and mortgage lenders. The San Francisco-based fintech will embed quoting capabilities of Arch MI, Enact, Essent, MGIC, National MI and Radian to Polly’s product and pricing engine to streamline the […]
Movement Mortgage was founded in 2008 with a mission to create a “movement of change” in the mortgage industry after one of the hardest financial episodes in American history. This mindset is still present today, as they continue to move forward to tackle some of the biggest problems in the industry today. Montell Watson, director […]
Mortgage servicing is a scale business, meaning the economics of scale can be achieved with larger servicing portfolio by spreading the fixed costs among more loans being serviced. Such scaling; however, hasn’t achieved the expected results as indicated by both the increase of servicing cost on a per-loan basis and on loans serviced on a […]
Blend Labs reported a $73.5 million loss in the first quarter, but pointed to the performance of its mortgage banking and title sectors as a positive sign for the rest of the year. The company’s revenue rose to $71.5 million, up 124% year over year, driven by $38.7 million in revenue from Title 365, which […]
Rates are rising. Refinances are falling. Inventory is contracting. Application fallouts are worsening. It’s getting harder out there. Worsening market conditions are only going to accelerate an already hyper-competitive mortgage lending industry that is still learning to adapt to post-pandemic homebuying behaviors. Technology has been the focal point of that evolution more out of necessity […]
An ebullient market for mortgage-servicing rights (MSRs) helped to buoy the profitability of at least three major nonbank lenders that are publicly traded and abated losses for a fourth, based on their recently announced first-quarter financial results. Those lenders are UWM Holdings Corp., the parent of United Wholesale Mortgage; Rocket Companies Inc., the parent of Rocket Mortgage; Home Point Capital, the […]
Home Point Capital, the parent company of wholesale lender Homepoint, continues to turn profits based on the selling of operations and assets as management adjusts the company to the shrinking mortgage market. The wholesaler reported on Thursday morning it notched a $12 million profit from January to March, a sequential decline from the $19.3 million in […]
Purchase mortgage rates this week averaged 5.30%, up three basis points from a week ago, causing homeowners’ monthly payments to increase by about one-third year-over-year, according to the latest Freddie Mac PMMS. Borrowers are showing resilience, but higher rates expected in coming months may reduce their appetite for mortgage loans. “In the months ahead, we expect monetary […]
Texas-based multichannel lender Caliber Home Loans is accusing Ohio-based CrossCountry Mortgage of executing an “illegal scheme of unfair competition” by targeting its employees, stealing trade secrets and diverting customers. The accusations are part of a lawsuit filed in May in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle. National Mortgage News first reported the case. Caliber […]
In this hot housing market, Michigan-based wholesale lender Homepoint understands the key to originating more home loans is ensuring more sellers accept offers made by its buyers. To do that it relies on the two words sellers increasingly want to hear: “All cash.” But how does an all-cash offer benefit a mortgage lender? Dubbed the […]
Prospective homebuyers aren’t deterred by the skyrocketing mortgage rates amid a slow start to the spring home-buying season this year. The Market Composite Index, a measure of loan application volume, rose 2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending May 6, from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Conventional, […]
Detroit-based Rocket Companies, the parent of Rocket Mortgage, generated a whopping $1 billion profit in the first quarter, up from $865 million the previous quarter. Compared to its main competitors, the lender seems to be in a comfortable place. United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) reported a much lower profit of $453.2 million from January to March, buoyed by adjustments in […]
The mortgage-servicing rights (MSR) market went on a tear at the start of 2022, and that hot streak has continued into the second quarter as interest rates on 30-year fixed mortgages continue to rise — now up 2 percentage points since the start of the year and still seemingly upward bound. As rates rise, MSR prepayment speeds […]
Nonbank heavyweight loanDepot reported an unprofitable quarter largely due to a steep decline in origination volume and expense reductions that did not keep up with the rapidly changing environment. The firm said it doesn’t expect to have a profitable fiscal year, citing pressures on margins and lower market volume. The California-based company reported a net […]
Eric Hill, an Atlanta real estate agent representing a nationwide homebuilder, had a plan to help more than 100 homebuyers get mortgages. The problem: They did not qualify for the loans. Hill’s scheme, also enabled by a group of co-conspirators, caught up with him, in part because many of the loans started going south. In […]
Fast-rising interest rates hit Finance of America Companies hard in the first quarter of 2022 and the company cut almost 600 jobs compared to one year ago. Like many of its competitors, the lender reported that its traditional mortgage business saw reduced originations and margins from January to March, mainly due to a drop-off in refinance volumes […]
Fewer buyers rushed to lock mortgages last month amid a rapid climb in long-term mortgage rates, reflecting home affordability concerns, reports from Mortgage Capital Trading and Black Knight showed. Total mortgage rate locks by dollar volume were down 5% in April from the previous month, according to MCT’s monthly Mortgage Lock Volume Indices report. Compared […]
Budget-tightening constraints of inflation, higher mortgage rates, and housing price gains are constraining consumers from buying houses. Fannie Mae‘s Home Purchase Sentiment Index, which tracks the housing market and consumer confidence to sell or buy a home, dropped by 4.7 points to 68.5 in April, marking the lowest level since May 2020. Compared with the […]
Closing costs for homeowners who jumped on the refi wave in 2021 increased at less than one-third the pace of closing costs for home purchases as homebuyers had to cope with a hot market that fueled higher home-sale prices and related settlement costs. The national average closing costs for a single-family property refinance in 2021 […]
A ruling late last year by a U.S. District Court judge in Wilmington, Delaware, put the structured-finance industry on high alert because of the serious legal and financial implications it poses for the private-label securities (PLS) market. The fate of the litigation is now in the hands of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third […]
California-based nonbank mortgage lender PennyMac Financial Services’ net income dropped more than 50% in the first quarter from the same period in 2021, driven by lower profits from its production segment due to surging mortgage rates and a shrinking origination market. However, the company still reported a pretax net income of $234.5 million in the […]
Add Guild Mortgage to the list of lenders with profitability propelled by the servicing portfolio in the first quarter — a trend that will continue in the coming months, as pressure on origination margins will remain, executives believe. The California-based nonbank mortgage lender reported a $208 million net income from January to March, an increase of 393% […]
Costco might have everything you need for a housewarming party, but as of this week it can’t help you buy the house. Homebuyers will have to look elsewhere to secure a mortgage, as the members-only big box store announced it’s no longer in the business of financing homes. The retailer recently decided to discontinue its […]
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. must convince regulators that the $13.1 billion mega-deal announced on Wednesday to acquire Black Knight will not harm competition in the mortgage tech solutions market. The software and data company also needs approval from Black Knight’s shareholders to move forward with the transaction, which valued the business at $85 per share, a […]
The cost of a home mortgage may be going up, but perhaps some good news: Fewer people who already own a home are missing payments. Mortgage delinquency rates dropped for the seventh straight quarter, hitting the lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2019, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Delinquency rates for mortgage loans […]
Freddie Mac is bringing another credit-risk transfer offering to market, its fourth of the year, through the agency’s Structured Agency Credit Risk (STACR) program. The credit risk transfer (CRT) offering, STACR 2022-DNA4, involves a $1.5 billion note backed by a reference loan pool of 118,055 residential mortgages with an outstanding principal balance of $35.4 billion, […]
Black Knight, the Florida-based mortgage tech and analytics behemoth, increased its profits six fold in the first quarter of 2022, compared to the same period of 2021, propelled by the investment in the credit reporting services company Dun & Bradstreet Holdings. The company’s latest earnings became public on Thursday, less than 24 hours after Intercontinental […]
Mortgage rates surged to 5.27% over the last week, the highest average since 2009, according to the latest Freddie Mac PMMS. This week’s average purchase mortgage rate rose 17 basis points from the prior week’s 5.10%. A year ago at this time, 30-year fixed-rate purchase rates were at 2.96%. The government sponsored enterprise’s index accounts […]
Mortgage rates are increasing and demand is beginning to level out. The residential real estate market is shifting, creating uncharted territory for lenders who’ve relied on a housing boom and refinancing to keep them in business. As existing home owners potentially put the brakes on buying new homes or on refinancing their existing ones, lenders […]
In a move with ramifications for an untold number of mortgage lenders and service firms, Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., a software and data company whose mini-empire includes ICE Mortgage Technology, has bought Black Knight. The $13.1 billion mega-deal was announced in a press release Wednesday afternoon. The move between what are generally regarded as the two […]
The Federal Reserve Wednesday approved a 50 basis point increase to its policy interest rate in an effort to reduce inflation, in conjunction with a plan to shrink its $9 trillion asset portfolio beginning next month, according to Chairman Jerome Powell. During a news conference following the Fed’s committee meeting, Powell announced the increase and […]
Black Knight’s Optimal Blue is looking to court mortgage brokers with its new pricing feature that provides up-to-date rates on its cloud-based loan servicing platform. Dubbed Quick Quote, the feature was added to Loansifter – its product, pricing and eligibility engine – and enables brokers to make accurate quote offers for products available to consumers […]
Don Layton, the former CEO of Freddie Mac recently penned what can only be described as an attack piece on mortgage originators from his seat as a fellow at the JCHS, Harvard’s Joint Center For Housing Studies. But what Mr. Layton has done is simple: perpetuate his ongoing disdain for the participants in the manufacturing […]
Individuals across the country chasing the American dream of homeownership helped to push mortgage-application volume up by 2.5% for the week ending April 29, compared with the prior week. The uptick, as measured by the Mortgage Bankers Association‘s (MBA’s) Market Composite Index, was propelled primarily by purchase-application activity, as rates remain elevated, hovering in the […]
Nonbank heavyweight loanDepot will unveil a home equity line of credit (HELOC) product in the third quarter of 2022, the first offering of its recently launched mello business unit. Fast-rising mortgage rates, recently cresting above 5%, have reduced refinance volumes by 70% year over year as of the end of April. The lender seeks to expand its […]
A Palo Alto, California-based fintech startup Point, which bills itself as allowing homeowners to tap into future home appreciation, closed on a $115 million Series C funding round, the company announced Tuesday. Point now says it has raised $170 million in equity capital. WestCap Group, a New York City-based investor, led the funding with existing […]
Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored enterprise that backs the majority of conventional mortgages, is not immune to the sharp decline in mortgage refinances. The enterprise reported $7.5 billion in first quarter revenue, a $700 million jump from 2021. But net income income was down 12% from nearly $5 billion first quarter 2021, to $4.4 billion this […]
Between February 2020 and January 2022, we witnessed something in the mortgage industry that we thought we’d never see — 30-year fixed-rate mortgages under 3.5%. These rates drew a record number of people refinancing their homes, with cash out refinances reaching $1.2 trillion in 2021. Then, in what felt like an instant, in Q1 2022 […]