But all is not rosy. At JPM, mortgage servicing balances continue to decline and the bank’s executives expect production margins will compress as origination volumes diminish…
As the Home Affordable Refinance Program ushers in its last year, the Federal Housing Finance Agency has charged Fannie and Freddie with developing an alternative to the popular refinance program created in 2009 to help underwater borrowers. Originally set to end in December 2013, the HARP program has been extended twice and will be put to rest on Dec. 31, 2016. At that time, the FHFA said the GSEs should have a high loan-to-value ratio refinance program in place and ready to kick off in January 2017. The FHFA’s 2016 scorecard for the GSEs directed Fannie and Freddie to “finalize post-crisis loss mitigation options for borrowers, including loan modifications, and develop an implementation plan and timeline.”
Correspondent originators and mortgage brokers continued to churn out relatively more purchase mortgages than retail lenders during the fourth quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of agency loan-level data. Some 34.6 percent of single-family loans securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae during the final three months of last year were originated by correspondent lenders. And 69.1 percent of those loans ... [Includes one data chart]
Social Finance Inc.’s recent decision to stop using FICO scores when evaluating an applicant’s ability to repay a mortgage suggests that alternatives to the traditional credit-scoring model are catching hold. On Jan. 12, 2016, SoFi, a San Francisco-based online nonbank lender, announced it is no longer going to use FICO scores, which for years have been the basis for the origination of trillions of dollars in mortgage and consumer loans in the U.S. SoFi will still take into account ...
In the aftermath of the financial crisis, mortgage originations recovered more slowly in areas where market share was concentrated among fewer lenders, according to a new study by Adonis Antoniades. The author is an economist in the monetary and economic department of the Bank for International Settlements. Antoniades used data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act to study loan applications, originations and lenders’ market share on a county-by-county level from 2006 through 2011 ...
With oil prices hitting multiyear lows this week, now might seem like a good time for residential lenders to tighten up underwriting standards in oil-producing states such as Alaska, Oklahoma, North Dakota and Texas. But so far, lending executives hardly seem worried. Jim Picard, vice president at Denali Home Loans in Alaska, said the state has suffered some job losses in oil “but we’re still at full employment.” He noted that energy jobs are a small part of Alaska’s economy ...
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