Mortgage tech firm Blend aims to court more lenders as it now supports Fannie Mae’s Desktop Underwriter (DU) early assessment enhancement with a direct integration from Blend’s soft credit pull function. DU early assessment gives lenders more options for their pre-qualification process in DU. Lenders can submit a single soft pull credit file and receive […]
William Erbey, the controversial founder of Ocwen Financial Corp., is back as chairman at Altisource Asset Management Corp. (AAMC). The company appointed Erbey to the role of CEO in late December and the board of directors also appointed him as its Chairman, a position he held from March 2012 to January 2015. This comes on […]
Nonbank mortgage lender and servicer Pennymac Financial Services issued pink slips to more than 80 employees in November as it faced tough headwinds in 2023. A total of 84 staff were affected at five offices in Pasadena, Roseville, Agoura Hills, Westlake Village and Moorpark, California, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications (WARN) alert […]
Deran Pennington, a former Movement Mortgage top sales executive sued for poaching by the lender, filed a counterclaim alleging that Movement breached the contract by failing and refusing to pay his due compensation. In total, he asks for about $13 million. In July, HousingWire reported that Pennington and two other top sales executives – Matt Schoolfield and […]
Reverse mortgage servicing company Celink is seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that it had added unlawful servicing fees to reverse mortgage loans alongside now-bankrupt lender Reverse Mortgage Funding (RMF). In response to the recent recommendation by a magistrate judge against the dismissal of Dancy-Wilkins v. Compu-Link Corporation, the servicer said that the recommendation […]
Mortgage demand fell over the holidays despite declining mortgage rates. Mortgage applications decreased 9.4% for the week ending Dec. 29 compared to two weeks earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The 30-year fixed mortgage rate closed 2023 at 6.76%, more than one percentage point lower than its October peak of 7.9%, […]
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New York-based nonbank mortgage lender RealFi (formally known as Residential Home Funding Corp.) laid off employees in December and did not issue their last paychecks or provide a severance package, former workers told HousingWire. The company’s executives held a conference call with employees on Dec. 15, notifying them about the job cuts because of a […]
2023 is in the rearview mirror — a year of tumult, reduced volume and a wave of industry exits and consolidations. While most have their eyes on the horizon, HousingWire’s dedicated reverse-centric publication, Reverse Mortgage Daily (RMD), will look back one more time at a year of challenge. Here, RMD takes stock of three of […]
The “silver tsunami” — a colloquialism referring to aging Americans changing their housing arrangements to accommodate aging — could have more of an impact on the housing market this year, according to analyst Meredith Whitney in a conversation with Yahoo Finance. “[T]he other major demographic trend you see is the aging of America,” Whitney said. […]
When will the mortgage industry know it has reached the tipping point where innovation is no longer a competitive advantage but an existential need? Maybe when it consistently fails to attract viable, aspirational customers (in part because it is cycling through last year’s leads and legacy customers instead of innovating new pathways to reach underserved, […]
Some people still think of social media platforms as places where your grandma’s dance moves go viral and your dog has more followers than you. While that may be accurate, as digital platforms continue to evolve at an exceptional rate, it has become nearly impossible for businesses to thrive without a social presence. In 2023, […]
The 2023 housing market faced one of the same roadblocks we saw in 2022: mortgage rates were too high for home sales growth. Now that we’re in 2024, the Federal Reserve‘s rate hike cycle is over, so let’s look at what that means for housing demand and home prices. However, a yearly forecast has limitations […]
Rocket Companies expanded its board of directors from seven to eight, giving its chief executive officer Varun Krishna a newly-created seat. Krishna was voted to serve as a Class III director, effective December 21, 2023, according to an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday. Krishna will serve “for a term […]
After nearly two years of trudging through a frozen housing market, the consensus among mortgage professionals is that the worst of it is over. The Federal Reserve recently signaled plans to slash interest rates three times in 2024, shifting toward the next phase in its monetary policymaking. “It finally seems like we are turning a […]
As we prepare to bid adieu to 2023, mortgage rates this week again stayed below seven percent. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.61% as of Dec. 28, a slight decrease from the 6.67% rate recorded on Dec. 21 according to Freddie Mac‘s Primary Mortgage Market Survey released on Thursday. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.93% […]
In his 20 years in mortgage banking, no year has compared to 2023 in terms of difficulty, said Ben Cohen, Guaranteed Rate’s managing director and a top-producing loan officer. “This is a lot different than 2008 where you needed a credit score and a heartbeat to get a mortgage. Now, you need to be very […]
Guild Mortgage has an ambitious plan under the leadership of its new CEO, Terry Schmidt. The California-based retail lender has set a target of becoming a top-10 lender in the markets in which it has a presence, which would give it about 2% in overall market share. It won’t be easy. United Wholesale Mortgage, the […]
Mortgage subservicer Loancare informed authorities that the data of about 1.3 million customers was compromised following a cyberattack in November on its parent company, the big four title firm Fidelity National Financial (FNF). This data includes customers’ social security numbers. The company informed officials in Maine and California that 1,316,938 customers had information accessed by hackers during the incident. […]
Kyle Joseph, a specialty finance equity research analyst at Jefferies, believes that the worst of the current mortgage cycle may be behind us, a sentiment shared by most analysts covering this industry. “Barring any sort of unforeseen consequences, I’d like to think so,” Joseph said in an interview. “Obviously, this cycle was fast and furious […]
As we approach Christmas day, we can only hope that the Federal Reserve now realizes their fear of 1970s-style inflation created a rate-hike cycle that disproportionately impacted the U.S. housing market and that they need to be pro-housing again. Even with all the drama we have dealt with in 2022-2023, the housing market stayed intact […]
Entering the real estate finance world in the summer of 2022 as a 23-year-old, I immediately felt like a fish out of water. Attending industry-related conferences and visiting clients, I was typically the only person in the room under the age of 30. Our industry is full of professionals with decades of experience, but with […]
The year ahead promises to offer the housing industry some relief, compared with a grueling 2023, but it is likely to be only a small bounce forward toward a healthier market. The housing industry, including the secondary market it feeds, is still likely to be sluggish in 2024, with marginal improvements in some sectors as […]
While delinquencies remain low overall, the number of delinquent loans ticked up in November, according to the latest ICE Mortgage Monitor report. Furthermore, the delinquency rate among FHA loans is at a nine-year high, and will be worth watching closely in 2024, the report said. The national delinquency rate climbed to 3.39% in November, which […]
Dovenmuehle Mortgage, a mortgage sub-servicing company, has informed authorities in Illinois that it will impose a layoff affecting hundreds of employees next year. The company has decided to cut 212 jobs in its Lake Zurich site starting on Feb. 16, 2024, per a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) filed with the Illinois Department of […]
Mortgage rates stayed below 7% for the second week in a row, a welcome relief after a 17-week streak of above-7% rates. This week’s dip is the largest weekly drop since November 2022. The 30-year, fixed mortgage rate averaged 6.67% for the week ending Dec. 21, according to Freddie Mac‘s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. That’s […]
It was late 2022 and Mike was feeling the pressure. Mortgage rates had climbed close to the 7% range and he was determined to remain competitive on pricing with rival loan officers in North Carolina. But there was a problem: pricing exceptions, in which the lender takes the hit, were becoming scarce at his company. […]
Last week’s DataDigest offered readers a host of housing forecasts from industry experts at banks, trade associations and more, the thrust of which was housing professionals should expect a modestly better year of sales thanks to retreating mortgage rates in the year to come. A day after publication, Federal Reserve officials made several of their […]
Mortgage demand fell for the first time since November as mortgage rates reached their lowest level since June 2023. Total home loan applications decreased by 1.5% for the week ending Dec. 15 compared to the previous week, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Mortgage rates for the 30-year fixed loan averaged 6.83%, […]
High-profile government actions against some of the nation’s largest financial firms for alleged violations of fair lending laws and loan servicing principles have sent a sobering message to industry CEOs and their boards: the buck stops at the top. We have entered a new regulatory era, one filled with expectations that a firm’s compliance with […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week released a new order amending its “express consent” rules for the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which closes the “lead generator loophole” used by mortgage professionals to connect with potential business leads. The loophole allowed those gathering leads to sell to many entities at once, who would then […]
The Federal Reserve played the good grinch for Christmas this year and delivered the best gift for homebuyers nationwide, leading to lower mortgage rates. The 10-year yield and mortgage rates fell together after the Fed meetings, which gave us mortgage rates under 7% last week. Mortgage rates and the 10-year yield What a crazy week! […]
South Carolina-based retail lender Movement Mortgage filed a lawsuit this week against Todd Scrima, founder and president at its competitor Summit Funding, accusing him of gaining illegal access to Movement’s confidential financial files and also scheming to divert Movement’s customers toward Summit. It’s the latest salvo in a legal battle that started after the three of Movement’s […]
Mr. Cooper Group’s examination of the cyberattack it suffered in late October concluded that the personal information of current and former customers was compromised. The data breach led the company to estimate an additional vendor cost related to the incident in the fourth quarter to include offering identity protection services for two years. On Oct. 31, […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) — the government regulatory body overseeing communications across a wide variety of media including radio, telephone cable and the internet — adopted a new series of rules on Wednesday designed to crack down on controversial lead generation methods, including “robocalling” and “robo-texting.” The new rules as adopted could bring a […]
A coalition of bipartisan lawmakers in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday introduced legislation targeting the practice of mortgage trigger leads. The bill, designated “S.3502,” is designed to “amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to prevent consumer reporting agencies from furnishing consumer reports under certain circumstances,” according to the bill’s language. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) […]
The holidays have come early for the mortgage industry. Mortgage rates fell below the 7% threshold this week as markets prepared for Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s announcement on Wednesday. The 30-year, fixed mortgage rate averaged 6.95% for the week ending Dec. 14, according to Freddie Mac‘s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. That’s down from last […]
Mortgage industry trade group Community Home Lenders of America (CHLA) is urging government agencies to begin to have conversations surrounding the impact of the jury verdict and potential court ruling in the Sitzer/Burnett commission lawsuit on lending practices. In a letter submitted Thursday to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Sandra Thompson, Federal Housing Administration Commissioner […]
Texas-based lender Thrive Mortgage plans to merge with digital multichannel rival Lower, which will create a unified lender with more than 650 loan officers and 120 active branches across the country. Financial details of the merger, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024, were not disclosed. Over the last 12 months, […]
The housing market cheered as the Federal Reserve signaled interest rate cuts next year after making a series of rapid rate hikes starting in 2022. While the central bank did not completely rule out the possibility of a rate increase in 2024, that action seems unlikely. Instead, fresh economic projections from central bank officials showed […]
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and the National Mortgage Servicing Association (NMSA) are expressing their views on a recently revised Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loss mitigation proposal, stating that it needs additional adjustments to effectively address the challenges it is designed to tackle. The proposed policy FHA in May submitted — and in November, updated […]
Government sponsored enterprise Freddie Mac has approved mortgage technology company Truv for both payroll verifications and consumer-permissioned income. With the new integration, lenders will have access to the Truv platform to obtain and transmit information and data required on Freddie Mac’s Loan Product Advisor platform for the income modeling assessment without needing a third-party verification. […]
The Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) held its short-term policy interest rate steady at a range of 5.25% to 5.5% at its last meeting of the year on Wednesday. It was the fourth pause recorded in 2023. Investors will parse Jerome Powell’s press conference this afternoon for clues about when and why the central bank […]
As 2023 winds to a close, so too does a brutal year for the housing market, a year marked by rising rates, steep home prices, scarce inventory and anemic mortgage originations, compared with the boom years of 2020 and 2021. It also has been a brutal year for the secondary market that creates liquidity for […]
As 2023 draws to a close, housing professionals hope for relief from the high mortgage rates, terrible inventory levels and slow sales that characterized the year. They may find that relief for mortgage rates next year, according to forecasts from various industry experts compiled by HousingWire. Sales, however, may see only mild improvement in the […]