“Borrowers continue to move away from applying for loans fully in-person, as they look for a process combining both high-tech and high-touch,” according to Ellie Mae.

An increasing number of areas moved from “sustainable” home price appreciation to “overheated” in 2017, according to Fitch.

The IRS recently formed a working group comprised of industry participants to address problems with the Income Verification Express Service, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The Senate voted 67-31 last week to pass the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, S. 2155, moving the deregulation debate to the House, which will look for more aggressive changes to roll back the Dodd-Frank Act. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, said the House would not pass the bill without additional provisions that would further relax regulations introduced after the 2008 financial crisis ...

Proposed changes to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act have become a key flashpoint of controversy in the advancing effort to reform the Dodd-Frank Act. The Senate last week passed legislation that would exempt depository institutions that have relatively small mortgage operations from new HMDA disclosure requirements – and some existing ones – that were mandated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The expanded HMDA reporting regime is taking effect for mortgage (include one data chart) ...

A bill to replace the CFPB director with a bipartisan commission was introduced to the House of Representatives last week.The Financial Product Safety Commission Act of 2018, H.R. 5266, was introduced by Rep. Dennis Ross, R-FL, and its co-sponsors include two Democratic House members. The bill would change the CFPB’s name to the “Financial Product Safety Commission.” The proposal would create a five-member commission, whose members are appointed by the president ...

Former World Acceptance Corp. CEO Janet Lewis Matricciani said she wants to apply for the position of CFPB director in an email to Acting Director Mick Mulvaney. The email was sent on January 24, two days before Matricciani left the company, and she said she wants to run the agency because no one’s better able than her to “understand the need to treat consumers respectfully and honestly, and the equal need to offer credit to lower income consumers.” Just two days before ...

The CFPB recently issued a final rule that the agency said would help mortgage servicers communicate with borrowers facing bankruptcy. The rule amended the timing requirements for servicers to provide periodic statements to consumers in bankruptcy. The rule will go into effect on April 19. At that point, servicers will be required to send monthly billing statements to consumers in active bankruptcy cases and certain cases in which the debtor’s personal liability was previously discharged. To give ...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, continues to be a pain to CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney. She sent another letter to Mulvaney last week, demanding answers about his leadership of the bureau. Since Mulvaney took over the agency in November 2017, Warren and her colleagues have sent him nine letters including 125 questions and requests. In the most recent letter, Warren accused the acting director of failing to answer or inadequately answering 105 of those questions ...

The Mortgage Bankers Association recently met with CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney to discuss CFPB reform priorities regarding the bureau’s requests for information. The MBA wrote to Mulvaney following the meeting to offer further thoughts to improve the agency’s operations. Mulvaney launched a “call for evidence” in January to review the bureau’s enforcement, supervision, rulemaking, and other activities, and has so far issued eight RFIs. MBA said it appreciated the agency’s effort to engage ...