Four new mortgage-servicing rights (MSR) offerings for agency loan portfolios valued at some $3.7 billion hit the market as the third quarter of the year kicked off. Alexandria, Virginia-based advisory and brokerage firm Prestwick Mortgage Group, along with its strategic partner, San Diego-based Mortgage Capital Trading (MCT), recently released bid documents for two separate MSR offerings involving loan […]
Wells Fargo‘s second-quarter earnings reflect the broader challenges mortgage lenders face in such a turbulent market – in just six months, a rapid rise in mortgage rates has eroded consumer demand, shocked capital markets and forced mass industry layoffs. And those fundamental challenges are not going away anytime soon. The third-biggest U.S. mortgage lender by volume […]
One statistic in the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest quarterly Mortgage Bankers Performance Report sticks out for all of the wrong reasons. In the first quarter of 2022, the average cost to originate a mortgage for an independent mortgage bank was more than $10,000 per loan, rising for the seventh consecutive quarter and breaking previous report […]
Non-QM lender Kiavi, which specializes in fix-and-flip and investor loans, has laid off 39 employees, sources told HousingWire on Thursday. An email sent to employees on Wednesday morning said Kiavi reduced the size of the firm by about 7% “to reduce our cost structure and protect the financial health of the company.” Kiavi has more […]
Palo Alto, California-based fintech Point, which offers home-equity investment (HEI) contracts to homeowners, is expanding its services into Nevada and Ohio. With the expansion, Point’s HEI contracts are now available in 18 states and the District of Columbia, according to the company. “Nevada homeowners are sitting on more than $150 billion in tappable home equity, and […]
The HousingWire award spotlight series highlights the individuals who have been recognized through our Editors’ Choice Awards. Nominations for HousingWire’s Vanguards are now open through Friday, July 22, 2022. Click here to nominate someone. As home prices continue to rise, one growing point of interest for many homeowners are reverse mortgages, with older Americans sitting on a record $10 […]
JPMorgan Chase leaders Thursday provided a glimpse of what’s to come as mortgage lenders begin sharing performance data for the second quarter – and it’s not pretty. Opening the earnings season, the bank reported double digit declines in originations, margins compressions and revenues in a free-fall, demonstrating how higher mortgage rates, the result of the Federal […]
The rollercoaster continues for mortgage rates. After falling 40 basis points last week to 5.30%, purchase mortgage rates climbed back up this week to 5.50%, according to the latest PMMS survey from Freddie Mac. “Mortgage rates are volatile as economic growth slows due to fiscal and monetary drags,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. […]
In policymakers’ hunt for a scalable, quick solution to the affordability crisis, one model has attracted more attention of late: manufactured housing. Manufactured housing received a prominent shoutout in the Biden administration’s affordable housing plan, which touted the potential role Freddie Mac could play in that market. Now the government-sponsored enterprises are each weighing whether […]
ESG investing — that is “environmental, social and governance” money management — goes by many monikers. Some call it “sustainable investing,” others “impact investing.” The United Nations, which coined the term two decades ago in the wake of the Enron and Exxon Valdez scandals, sometimes refers to it as “inclusive investing.” All these phrases imply […]
June was a rough month for jumbo-mortgage securitizations, with only two private-label offerings brought to market valued at roughly $821 million. The two jumbo-loan deals that did make it out of the gate last month were issued by Rocket Mortgage and J.P. Morgan Chase via the Rocket Mortgage Trust and J.P. Morgan Mortgage Trust conduits. […]
Demand for mortgages declined for the second consecutive week, led by a dip in purchase mortgage applications — despite rates on a downward trend. The market composite index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 1.7% for the week ending July 8, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The refinance index rose 2% from […]
California-based Pennymac launched a product that can freeze mortgage rates as many as 90 days, in a bid to attract more borrowers to the market amid volatile rates. Dubbed “Lock & Shop,” the product, rolled out in mid-June, has two terms: the 75-day lock, which gives borrowers 45 days to shop and 30 days to […]
Volatile mortgage rates and economic uncertainty have rocked the housing market this year, challenging mortgage lenders, real estate agents, title companies and appraisal firms to adapt quickly to changing conditions. That’s why we’ve designed our HW Annual event Oct. 3-5 as the “Davos of Housing,” providing real, practical insight for this dynamic market from proven […]
Lenders continued to tighten credit standards in June as higher mortgage rates slowed refinance and purchase activity. The monthly Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) fell by 0.3% in June, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. A decline of the index, benchmarked to 100 in March 2012, indicates lending standards are tightening, while an increase suggests […]
In a few months, the loss mitigation measures that have kept close to 100,000 veterans from foreclosure during COVID-19 will end. Decisions of policymakers at the Department of Veterans Affairs will determine what happens to those borrowers. The VA also faces challenges unrelated to the pandemic. The cost of credit for its borrowers is set by Congress, […]
Luke Tomaszewski, an appraiser doing home inspections in the aftermath of the housing bust, was traveling as much as an hour across Chicago just to snap exterior photos of bank-owned properties. Sitting in traffic, Tomaszewski wished he could pay an Uber driver to take the photos instead. “When we started, the idea was to obtain […]
San Francisco-based Unison is extending its reach in the heartland by expanding its shared-equity loan program to homeowners in Nebraska. The move follows the opening of an office in Omaha earlier this year and reaching the milestone as of June 30 of having in force $6.1 billion in equity-sharing agreements with some 9,000 homeowners across 29 states […]
Nonbank lender loanDepot is making what appears to be the largest series of cuts in the mortgage industry this year, eliminating 4,800 jobs over the course of 2022. Overall, the California-based lender is implementing a program dubbed “Vision 2025” to save between $375 million and $400 million on an annual basis, including headcount reduction, process optimizations, […]
The loan quality of mortgage pools backing private-label securitization (PLS) deals has remained solid this year through the end of June, even as deal volume slowed appreciably between the first and second quarters. In addition, the average coupon for PLS note offerings so far this year has not yet caught up with current market rates, […]
As Wells Fargo contemplates a smaller footprint in mortgage, the nation’s fourth-largest bank named Kleber Santos as chief executive officer of consumer lending. Santos joined the bank in November 2020 as head of diverse segments, representation and Inclusion (DSRI), a role he will keep until the bank names a permanent replacement. Before Wells Fargo, he […]
Mortgage services provider Evolve Mortgage Services announced Monday it has added Mark Calabria, the former director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), to its advisory board. Calabria is to serve a one-year term, which began July 1, according to an emailed news release from the Frisco, Texas-based company. The board primarily is focused on […]
The federal government’s signature program to help homeowners from falling behind on their mortgage, having utilities shut off, or being forced out of their homes, is finally being rolled out across America through pilot programs. But servicers say that dealing with the $10 billion fund, dubbed the “Homeownership Assistance Fund,” has been chaotic and cumbersome. […]
Black Knight this week launched a tool that enables lenders to compare loan estimates and closing disclosures from closed loans to minimize expenses in a higher rate environment. Dubbed the Black Knight “fee cures suite,” the program combines loan information from the lender’s loan origination system with the firm’s Ernst fee data, as well as […]
Mortgage consulting firm LendArch has hired Karthik Kumar, the former global mortgage practice head at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). He will serve as LendArch’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. Kumar was a manager at Standard Chartered Bank from 2002 to 2004. He then spent 18 years at TCS, where he focused on solution […]
Just how bad was the mortgage market in June, when rates climbed north of 6%? Rate locks fell across all loan types last month, and were down 11% overall from May, according to Black Knight. The company’s monthly mortgage originations report also revealed that 82% of locks in June were purchases, the lowest share of […]
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is making it easier for homebuyers financially affected by COVID-19 to qualify for a loan. The administration told lenders Thursday it will grant underwriting flexibility in cases in which a borrower experienced a gap in employment or a reduction of income as a result of the pandemic — but has since […]
Just two days after it abruptly shut down its operations, non-QM lender Sprout Mortgage became the target of a class-action-seeking lawsuit. Two former employees are suing the Long Island-based Sprout, its affiliated company Recovco Mortgage Management LLC and chief executive officer Michael Strauss, alleging they laid off around 100 employees at the New York office […]
Institutional players in the single-family rental (SFR) market have been expanding their reach into select American neighborhoods since the global financial crisis of 2008, but they now find themselves in an uncomfortable limelight. They are under scrutiny in Congress and accused of gentrifying minority neighborhoods and allegedly displacing large numbers of people of color — […]
Recently, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that mortgage lenders will be required to include in loan packets the Supplemental Consumer Information Form (SCIF), which registers a borrower’s language preference, in order for those loans to be eligible for sale to Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. While the requirement may seem fairly innocuous, it’s […]
Can Fannie Mae’s housing equity plan make a meaningful dent in the 30 percentage point racial homeownership gap without a broad review of loan pricing? Top brass at Fannie Mae, in a Thursday webinar discussing its new equitable housing finance plans, argued it can. “The list of potential obstacles across the Black housing journey — […]
Roughly eight in 10 consumers participating in a recent survey are frustrated with the housing market, inflation and the increasingly worsening economy — reflecting record-setting dissatisfaction from respondents of Fannie Mae‘s Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI). The index, which tracks consumer confidence in the housing market, fell 3.4 points from May to June, dropping to 64.8 […]
Enact Holdings Inc., the holding company for Enact Mortgage Insurance Co., has inked a deal with five lenders that have agreed to extend a $200 million revolving line of credit to the company. The credit facility will be used for working capital and other corporate purposes as well as for capital contributions to its insurance subsidiaries. […]
In May, we announced our intention to acquire Black Knight. Since the announcement, we have heard from a number of lenders and partners about their excitement over our ability to accelerate the digital journey of our industry, our ability to invest in the modernization of the MSP servicing platform, and the open technology approach we […]
We are in a unique moment in the history of housing. With a rapid spike in interest rates, inventory at historic lows, home prices rising at unprecedented levels above income, and a purchase market that is both highly anxious and digitally reliant, mortgage and real estate professionals must be strategic to capture the market opportunity […]
Non-QM lender Sprout Mortgage is shutting down operations, multiple workers said on Wednesday. The company informed workers of the shut down in a conference call on Wednesday, a former staffer said. Sprout had already instituted several rounds of job cuts in the months leading up to the shutdown, the ex-employee said. The closure of Long […]
Subsidiaries of Pennymac Financial Services Inc. (PFSI), which ranks as one of the top five mortgage lenders nationally, are seeking to raise more than $700 million in the debt markets through the sale of notes secured by mortgage servicing rights. The transactions include a note offering of $305 million sponsored by PFSI subsidiary PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust that is […]
The federal banking regulators responsible for overseeing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) obligations of lenders they regulate have released the 2022 list of distressed or underserved rural census tracts where community-development loans, investments and services are eligible for special CRA consideration. Community-development efforts eligible for the special consideration include affordable-housing lending in these lower-income rural […]
Lender and servicer New Residential Investment Corp. laid off originations staffers last week, sources told HousingWire. The lender has made several rounds of cuts since February. Employees in processing, underwriting, and closing jobs were the main targets in the last week’s layoff round, according to multiple interviews with former employees. The latest layoff affected employees […]
As recession talk becomes more prevalent, some people are concerned that mortgage credit lending will get much tighter. This typically happens in a recession, however, the notion that credit lending in America will collapse as it did from 2005 to 2008 couldn’t be more incorrect, as we haven’t had a credit boom in the period […]
Fewer applications show borrowers’ demand for mortgage loans fell this week, despite a decline in rates due to concerns of an economic recession, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The survey, which includes adjustments to account for the long Fourth of July weekend, shows mortgage applications down 5.4% for the week ending July 1, compared to […]
Real estate valuation technology company Clear Capital rolled out two application programming interfaces (APIs) that aim to make adopting and deploying modern valuation solutions easier, ultimately closing loans faster. Property valuation API and risk assessment API, released late last month, connect directly into existing systems through a single integration for lenders, investors and system providers, […]
Less than a month after Wyndham Capital Mortgage said it planned to pink slip more than 40 employees, the consumer direct lender conducted another round of layoffs. Wyndham notified “a number of employees” about the layoffs Thursday, including those working in the Charlotte, North Carolina headquarters, and employees who work remotely, according to a layoff […]
Seattle-based real estate investment platform Arrived Homes is flush with cash after recently raising $25 million in a venture-capital funding round, and is working to expand its reach in the still-hot single-family rental market. Arrived Homes is currently on a pace of acquiring about 30 single-family rental properties per month, with an existing portfolio across 19 cities of […]
Home price appreciation, which skyrocketed during the pandemic, is showing signs of slowing, according to a monthly report published by CoreLogic Tuesday. In May, home prices increased by 20.2% year-over-year, the report said. But come next May, the data vendor predicts home price appreciation will dip to 5%. The recent hikes in mortgage interest […]