Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) has dropped a lawsuit that accused Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte of violating federal privacy laws. The parties agreed to the “dismissal of this action without prejudice, with each side bearing its own fees and costs,” according to court filings. The move means that Swalwell could refile or […]
Cleveland-based CrossCountry Mortgage (CCM) has entered the bidding battle for Two Harbors Investment Corp., facing competition not only from UWM Holdings Corp. — which already has a signed agreement — but also from another unsolicited bidder offering a higher all-cash price. Market speculation that CCM was behind a $10.70-per-share cash offer surfaced late last week, […]
Balance Homes on Monday announced enhancements to its co-ownership program, which is designed to guide homeowners back to full, independent ownership through structured support and financial incentives. The updates come just two months after the company announced its relaunch backed by a $30 million investment led by Falco Group. Participants in Balance’s program begin with […]
Florida-based Onity Group announced that mortgage subsidiary PHH Mortgage Corp. has rebranded as Onity Mortgage, a move that was anticipated and became effective Monday. “Today marks another important milestone in our multi-year transformation as PHH Mortgage officially becomes Onity Mortgage,” Glen Messina, chair, president and CEO of Onity Group, said in a statement. “This change […]
Every mortgage lender knows that declined loans represent marketing spend, staff time and operational resources that never convert into funded loans or revenue. Those losses add up quickly in a margin-sensitive environment. In Q3 2025, independent mortgage banks (IMBs) and mortgage subsidiaries of chartered banks reported a pre-tax net production profit of $1,201 per loan […]
Two former loan officers have sued Stockton Mortgage Corp., alleging the company illegally accessed their personal email accounts and used private messages in separate litigation against them. Christopher Hoehn and Ashley Hoehn filed the complaint on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. They claim that Stockton and unidentified employees […]
If you work in mortgage banking long enough, you learn to watch the signals. Rates move.Consumers react.The agencies adjust.And the industry pivots. We watch these indicators because they tell us where the market is going. But there’s one signal the industry often overlooks — and ironically, it might be the most predictable one of all. […]
As the spring homebuying season approaches, mortgage lenders and servicers are watching closely for signs of a long‑awaited inflection point. Interest rates have begun to ease, buyer sentiment is improving, and some sidelined demand is cautiously reentering the market. Lower rates will matter. But they are not, on their own, enough. Experience from the last […]
Growing uncertainty over Social Security, Medicare and fiscal policy has left many older Americans more concerned about their financial futures — with some delaying retirement and shifting to more conservative investment strategies. Findings from a new survey analysis by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College offer critical insights for reverse mortgage professionals as […]
Borrowers are still anchored to ultra-low, pandemic-era mortgage rates, a mindset that is influencing both purchase and refinance trends as the market heads into 2026. That’s according to Mike Vough, Optimal Blue‘s senior vice president of corporate strategy, who highlighted the company’s latest Market Advantage report in a conversation this week with HousingWire at the […]
Federal bank regulators on Thursday introduced proposals to overhaul capital rules, affecting how depositories treat mortgage assets. The package includes three measures: revisions to the Basel III framework for large, internationally active banks; changes to the Global Systemically Important Bank (GSIB) surcharge; and updates to the U.S. standardized approach. A broader Basel III proposal introduced in 2023 […]
Palantir Technologies and mortgage outsourcing firm Moder have formed a strategic partnership to co-build an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered mortgage operations platform, with Freedom Mortgage servicing the first pilot customer, the companies announced Thursday. The platform combines Palantir’s data and AI infrastructure with Moder’s mortgage operations expertise to automate and standardize key workflows, according to the […]
United Holding Corp., the parent of United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), is facing new competition in its bid to acquire Two Harbors Investment Corp., which may force the company to sweeten its offer for the real estate investment trust (REIT). A competing bidder has offered $10.70 per share in cash, valuing the company at roughly $1.12 […]
Over the past several months, former President Donald Trump has floated a number of ideas aimed at helping Americans buy homes again. Among them are proposals such as 50-year mortgages and other creative financing tools intended to lower monthly payments for buyers struggling with today’s interest rates. The intention behind these ideas are novel and […]
Following in the footsteps of an initial dataset for 2025, Reverse Market Insight (RMI) and HECMWorld published updated numbers this week for reverse mortgage broker and third-party originator activity. While the top Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) originators for January 2026 did not vary from 2025 as a whole, they offer insight into which companies […]
President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting mortgages addresses several concerns raised by banks and nonbanks, which have largely welcomed it as a road map for regulatory change. But it’s also receiving pushback from consumer advocates. Friday’s order on “promoting access to mortgage credit” aims to boost lending by community banks (with less than $30 billion […]
Cleveland-based CrossCountry Mortgage (CCM) has struck a deal to acquire Summit Funding, broadening its geographic reach, the companies announced Wednesday. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. “In 2025, we financed 1 in 35 homes sold nationwide, ranking as the No. 1 retail mortgage lender,” Ron Leonhardt, founder and CEO, told HousingWire. “This acquisition […]
Data courtesy of the Mortgage Bankers Association Walsh went on to note that, between the third and fourth quarters of 2025, the average IMB saw production volume rise, while revenues declined and the overall cost to originate stayed relatively flat. This was tied in part to increased Independent mortgage banks (IMBs) and mortgage subsidiaries of […]
Mortgage applications decreased 10.9% from one week earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA)’s weekly mortgage applications survey for the week ending March 13. On an unadjusted basis, the index decreased 10% compared with the previous week. “Mortgage rates continued to move higher, driven by increasing Treasury yields as the conflict in the Middle […]
Older Americans now hold as much real estate wealth as middle-aged homeowners, illustrating the widening gaps in homeownership access and long-term home price gains. An analysis from Redfin, based on data from the Federal Reserve Board, found that Americans ages 70 and older controlled roughly 26% of the nation’s $48 trillion in real estate wealth […]
Finance of America (FOA) has expanded access to its HomeSafe Second product into Indiana, Ohio and Michigan, giving senior homeowners more options for tapping record levels of home equity without giving up their low post-pandemic mortgage rates, the company announced Tuesday. Reintroduced in 2023 as what the company called the industry’s first second-lien reverse mortgage, […]
Top banks in the mortgage space, which have relied on a similar playbook for years, say they could become more active if upcoming changes to capital rules provide more flexibility, several industry executives told HousingWire. But any shift in strategy is expected to take time. Depositories typically focus on their existing customer base, ranging from […]
“Just when I think things are falling in place, another wild card arrives,” Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) president and CEO Bob Broeksmit said Tuesday morning at ICE Experience’s X26 annual mortgage conference. In a conversation with ICE Mortgage Technology President Bob Hart that spanned recent executive orders, mergers and acquisitions, and artificial intelligence, Broeksmit admitted […]
Mortgage rates saw moderate increases in the past week as global economic uncertainty around the U.S.-Iran conflict continues, putting a damper on what was previously expected to be a brisk spring homebuying season. Mortgage News Daily reported Friday that 30-year fixed rates spiked to a seven-month high point of 6.41% before retreating to 6.36% on […]
Intercontinental Exchange Inc. on Tuesday morning unveiled a suite of artificial intelligence-powered voice and chat agents for mortgage servicing, along with new automation tools, during its annual ICE Experience (X26) conference. The company said the agents, currently in beta testing, are designed to help homeowners manage their loans and complete servicing-related tasks within governed processes. […]
A joint study from mortgage technology platform Tidalwave and researchers at Columbia University found that Tidalwave’s mortgage-trained AI agent produced more accurate answers to loan underwriting questions than a general-purpose large language model. The benchmarking evaluated Tidalwave’s SOLO agent against Claude 4.5 from Anthropic on 90 questions commonly asked by loan officers during the mortgage […]
JAUST, an automated underwriting system (AUS) built specifically for jumbo mortgage originations, has launched with a cloud-native platform that aims to help lenders cut underwriting costs and accelerate decision times, the company announced Tuesday. The platform is designed for portfolio lenders and mortgage banks that manage dozens of jumbo investors and complex overlays. “The mortgage […]
In real estate, title insurance, and mortgage lending, transactions depend on technology operating accurately and securely behind the scenes. Every login, file access, system change, and integration generates activity that can either support business continuity or signal potential risk. One of the most overlooked yet powerful cybersecurity safeguards is maintaining and reviewing application logs. These […]
A federal judge has ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) must continue getting its funding from the Federal Reserve, dealing a setback to Trump administration efforts to effectively shut down the agency. The ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose blocks acting CFPB Director Russell Vought from using a […]
Freedom Superior LLC, the indirect parent of Freedom Mortgage Corp., has agreed to acquire Seneca Mortgage Servicing LLC from EJF Capital LP in a move aimed at expanding its mortgage servicing capabilities, the companies announced Monday. Financial terms were not disclosed. Under the Freedom umbrella, Seneca, an asset manager that invests in and services mortgage servicing […]
As the senior demographic continues to grow and evolve, reverse mortgage professionals may be getting more questions about home renovation projects and how to fund them. Tapping into home equity through a traditional reverse mortgage, a proprietary product or even the vastly underutilized HECM for Purchase program can be a path for seniors to repair […]
President Donald Trump on Friday announced two executive orders that aim to increase the U.S. housing supply and consumer access to mortgage credit. One of the orders directs various federal agencies — including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) — to work together on reviewing […]
iBuyer Opendoor’s recently launched mortgage product — which promises below-market interest rates after the company removed its markup — has sparked debate across the industry about who absorbs the cost and whether the model is sustainable. Some industry professionals view the offering as similar to the strategy many homebuilders use — providing below-market mortgage rates […]
U.S. homeowners lost some equity over the past year as home price growth slowed, though overall equity levels remain historically high. A new report from Cotality found that borrower equity declined by $78.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared with a year earlier — a drop of about 0.5%. On average homeowners lost […]
Fidelis Investors has closed its third rated residential transition loan (RTL) securitization, a $143.925 million deal backed by 330 loans originated by 29 lenders, the company announced Friday. The transaction, FIDL 2026-RTL1, is a two-year revolving securitization rated by Morningstar DBRS. The origination of the underlying RTL collateral was completed by Unitas Funding LLC, a […]
There’s no question that banks have played a steadily diminishing role in mortgage lending and servicing over the past decade. In 2016, the three largest mortgage lenders were Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America, and depository institutions made up six of the top 10 mortgage lenders. Fast forward to 2026, and only […]
Reverse mortgage lender Longbridge Financial this week introduced RetentionIQ, a program designed to protect the loan pipelines of broker partners by addressing the persistent tension between retail and wholesale businesses at multichannel lenders. Previously, partners had to contact Longbridge directly if one of their borrowers was approached by the lender’s retail team. In these cases, […]
For years, the housing industry anticipated that the aging demographic would steadily release inventory into the resale market. Instead, many older homeowners are remaining in place longer than expected — and the reasons go far beyond sentiment. As someone who began my career building a mortgage lending company — followed by real estate, escrow and […]
New Jersey homeowners could see smaller property tax relief benefits under a budget proposal unveiled Tuesday by Gov. Mikie Sherrill, as the state confronts fiscal pressures and persistently high costs of living. In her first budget address since taking office, Sherrill proposed tightening eligibility and lowering the maximum payout for the state’s Stay NJ program […]
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) urged the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to revise elements of its proposed partial claim and loss-mitigation policies for VA-backed mortgages, arguing that the draft rules could leave veteran borrowers at a disadvantage compared to others. In a comment letter submitted Wednesday and addressed to Patrick Zondervan, executive director […]
The Senate overwhelmingly passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act in an 89–10 vote on Thursday, advancing a sweeping bipartisan bill aimed at boosting housing supply and addressing affordability challenges nationwide. But consumer advocates and trade groups are still pushing for changes to several provisions. Congress has not passed such a comprehensive housing package […]
Housing and real estate trade groups are urging lawmakers to revise several provisions in the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which is scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor. Industry concerns focus on the bill’s build-to-rent (BTR) provision that require institutional investors to sell newly constructed BTR homes within a set time frame, […]
CrossCountry Mortgage (CCM) has launched a dedicated homebuilder division and made a “significant investment” in the new unit as it targets more business from builders and consumer buyers, the company announced Wednesday. The Cleveland-based lender said the expansion is meant to deepen relationships with builders nationwide and deliver loan products tailored to both builders and […]
Onity Group Inc. announced this week that it plans to rebrand its PHH Mortgage Corp. subsidiary as Onity Mortgage Corp., effective March 23, extending the company’s multiyear shift from the legacy Ocwen and PHH brands. The company disclosed the planned name change in a statement, saying that PHH Mortgage will become Onity Mortgage and align […]
Blend Labs Inc. ended 2025 with a profitable quarter as improved mortgage market conditions supported its business, while executives said the company is largely insulated from the recent “SaaSpocalypse” affecting the software industry. The company reported non-GAAP operating income of $5.4 million in the fourth quarter, up from $4.3 million in the third quarter and […]