Emerging eClosing technology may make borrowers a little smarter, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but it isn’t easy for lenders to implement. A CFPB report on the agency’s eClosing project found that borrowers who participated in the pilot scored slightly higher in a quiz on the closing process than did those who relied on good-old paper. The eClosers were...

Appraisal independence requirements adopted by the government-sponsored enterprises helped reduce the probability of inflated appraisals and made it more difficult to obtain mortgages, according to new research by staff at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Lei Ding, a community development economic advisor at the Philadelphia Fed, and Leonard Nakamura, a vice president and economist, detailed their findings in a paper published at the end of July. The government-sponsored enterprises adopted...

Student loan debt is no joke in America – and mortgage bankers, in particular, know all about it, especially since it’s being singled out as the chief reason why some borrowers can’t afford to buy their first home. Each year, a new group of college graduates has to start figuring out how to pay off their student loans. There’s even a website dedicated to showing the national student debt in real time – roughly $1.2 trillion as Inside Mortgage Trends went to press – along with credit card debt and auto loans. Currently, 15 percent of mortgagors have...

A new research paper analyzing the risks and opportunities for disruption in the housing finance system notes that new business models and services make the entire mortgage industry ripe for change. Although the paper by the Collingwood Group notes that disruption is inevitable in any industry, it said it is most predictable in an industry faced with conditions where the current model is too challenging, inefficient, costly and unresponsive to customer and business needs. “With no fundamental changes to origination processes in decades, lost efficiency, growing regulatory hurdles, high costs and low profits, there is...

The sharp increase in purchase-mortgage lending during 2Q helped float the private MI boat higher.

Historically, the turn time for the Income Verification Express Service program has been around two business days or less. Not anymore.

Is the bulk MSR market in the doldrums?

Overall, delinquencies remained below levels seen a year ago...

HUD's Neighborhood Watch system is down, but this cabinet level agency has no explanations for the press or public

Some lenders, such as PennyMac, have promoted the no-downpayment feature in their media advertisements.