The rise in retail market share likely reflects the fact that smaller lenders, which are more likely to do retail lending exclusively, account for a growing share of GSE business.
About 90 percent of the housing markets in the U.S today are considered affordable, according to RealtyTrac. Speaking at a recent real estate conference in Miami, RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist said places like San Diego and Seattle are on the threshold of exceeding their historic affordability. …
With same-sex marriage becoming law throughout the land, the question for the mortgage industry is how this would help the housing market. There is very little market research on homeownership rates among gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender and same-sex couples. But a recent survey by the National Association of Gay & Lesbian Real Estate Professionals found 54 percent of LGBT respondents own some type of real estate and, of those, 8 percent own a vacation home. In…
Two weeks ago, specialty servicer Wingspan Portfolio Services shuttered its Melbourne, FL, office, leaving 150 servicing workers without a job. But more bad news may be on the way for the once fast-growing “contract” servicer. According to industry officials close to the company, the privately held Wingspan is in need of new contracts – badly. …
The pending implementation of the integrated disclosures rule is driving a sea change in at least two critical areas: technology innovation and regulatory expectation. Competency with the former will facilitate the fulfillment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s so-called TRID rule, according to speakers at the American Bankers Association’s recent regulatory compliance conference in Washington, DC. The rule, now scheduled to take effect Oct. 3, requires new consumer disclosures under the Truth in Lending Act and…
A more subtle version of looking at redlining is becoming a major focus in fair-lending analysis, according to industry experts participating in a recent webinar sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance. The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act was created in 1974 largely as a tool to fight discriminatory redlining, a practice named for maps that some lenders developed that literally outlined in red the parts of the market where they would not do business. HMDA’s focus on mapping…
Increased regulation and a relatively stable lending environment have helped reduce mortgage fraud, although that could change as purchase mortgages become more prevalent. Interthinx, a provider of risk management services for lenders, said in its new annual report for 2014 that mortgage fraud declined by 4 percent compared with 2013. The biggest drop was in fraud relating to a borrower’s employment or income. …
Mortgage regulators have sounded alarms and written new rules in response to the growing market share of nonbanks in the servicing market, but nonbank servicers were much more dominant 10 years ago. At the end of 2005, nonbanks accounted for 40.6 percent of mortgage servicing outstanding at the time. At the end of March 2015, nonbanks were making headlines because they had a combined 27.3 percent share of the market. …
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