Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, introduced legislation last week to make significant changes to the housing-finance market. The bill is essentially dead on arrival given the current makeup of Congress, but it signals some priorities for Democrats as they look to win elections in 2020.
Passive owners of mortgage servicing rights that have nothing to do with the monthly processing chores are now required to register with the Financial Institutions Division of the Ohio Department of Commerce, a change that has industry analysts and dealmakers scratching their heads.
To minimize credit risk in FHA’s forward mortgage portfolio, lenders have been ordered to manually underwrite loan applicants with low credit scores and high debt-to-income ratios. [Includes one data chart.]
The nation’s subservicing vendors ended the fourth quarter with $2.47 trillion worth of contracts on their books, a 9.8% sequential gain and a handsome 23.5% annual increase, according to figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance. [Includes one data chart.]
The mortgage servicing market continued to grow in the fourth quarter of 2018, with most of the gains coming in the agency market, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis. [Includes two data charts.]
Mortgage repurchases by banks and thrifts fell to $2.29 billion in 2018, the lowest annual total since institutions began reporting this activity on quarterly call reports in 2007. It would have been a lot lower without Bank of America. [Includes one data chart]
Mortgage banking firms trimmed 1,100 posi-tions during January, ending the month with 239,900 full-timers on their payrolls, according to figures compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Loan brokers, on the other hand, added 500 positions, bringing employment in the sector to 86,300.
A lack of digital offerings has become a major drag on the home-equity market as customers are more likely turning to alternative sources of funding, according to a new study by J.D. Power.