Plenty of potential homebuyers have prequalified with HomeStreet Bank for mortgages this year but the bank has significantly cut its mortgage staff because originations have been below expectations. The bank focuses on markets on the West Coast and officials said purchase-mortgage originations have been constrained by a low supply of homes for sale. “The strong West Coast economies and local markets in which we operate are continuing to produce above-average job and population growth ...

There’s room for improvement in loan origination system offerings, according to a survey of 250 lenders by Strategic Mortgage Finance Group. The consulting group recently released details from its 2016 survey on lenders’ LOS. Lead generation/management was by far the lowest rated functionality within various systems. Only 4.0 percent of survey participants said the lead generation/management offered by their LOS was highly effective. “With the market shift to more purchase business, the lack ...

Thanks to a comeback in private-money lending and a boom in the “fix-and-flip” sector, FCI Lender Services has seen its servicing portfolio double the past two years to roughly $7 billion. By 2019, it expects to be servicing upwards of $10 billion. At least that’s the forecast from Gordon Albrecht, senior director in charge of marketing and strategies for the Anaheim, CA-based nonbank. “Business is accelerating across the board,” said Albrecht. The only sector that’s not expected to show ...

Accenture, a global professional services company, is re-imagining Software-as-a-Service to give mortgage lenders an advantage in migrating to a digital lending environment. In a new white paper, the firm begins by noting that mortgage lenders are moving as quickly as possible these days toward the digital mortgage. “While each lender defines this product slightly differently, the consumer sees it as an overdue evolution in home finance,” said Accenture. “There are many advantages for ...

Industry activity to promote the digitalization of the mortgage process seems to be accelerating of late. This week, ServiceLink, a provider of transaction services to the mortgage industry, and Roostify, a provider of automated lending technology, announced a partnership they said will extend the digital experience for lenders and consumers alike. Chris Azur, CEO of ServiceLink, said the pairing will improve the overall consumer and lender mortgage experience through enhanced ...

Heavy purchase-mortgage business boosted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac production of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter of 2017, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis and ranking.The two GSEs issued a total of $223.61 billion of MBS during the three-month period ending in September, a solid 17.9 percent gain from the previous quarter. It was the strongest quarter of 2017, but production during the first nine months of the year remained 6.4 percent below the same period in 2016. Most of the gain came from the seasonal purchase-mortgage side of the business. Fannie and Freddie securitized $140.75 billion of loans used to acquire a new home, a huge 26.4 percent increase from the second quarter.

There was a sense of urgency in FHFA Director Mel Watt’s comments to Congress this week about reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As the year winds down and the GSEs’ capital buffer becomes non-existent in January 2018, the FHFA head voiced his frustration about the lack of action from Congress on addressing the nine-year conservatorship. “These conservatorships have been unprecedented in scope, complexity and duration, especially when you consider that the enterprises support over $5 trillion in mortgage loan guarantees,” he said testifying before the House Financial Services Committee. House lawmakers fired off questions to Watt on everything from flood insurance to the qualified-mortgage rule and credit-risk transfers during this week’s hearing.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General said late last week that the FHFA is not doing a good job of monitoring the escalating costs associated with Fannie Mae’s new headquarters being constructed in downtown Washington, DC. This is the second time the agency watchdog has blasted the FHFA for not properly overseeing the build-out of the leased office space comprised of two office towers connected by multiple glass bridges. In a new audit, the IG questioned upgrades on the Class A office building that cost more than the typical $175 per rentable square foot.

Fannie Mae has partnered with the state housing finance agency in New Hampshire to pilot a program that allows buyers of manufactured homes access to 30-year conventional fixed-rate mortgages. The program kicked off last week and buyers must purchase in qualified resident-owned communities (ROC). The Home Preferred Manufactured Housing ROC loan, created in conjunction with the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, gives both buyers and current ROC homeowners affordable financing and low-cost mortgage insurance options. New Hampshire was the perfect place to pilot the program because of the way it treats MH in ROCs, Patrick McCarthy, Fannie’s vice president of alternative real estate-owned dispositions told Inside The GSEs. “It treats them as real property whereas in....

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders are feeling more confident they will prevail in lawsuits over the Treasury sweep as internal government documents related to a popular case continue to trickle out. Late this week, Federal Claims Court Judge Margaret Sweeney granted a motion to compel the disclosure of documents that were filed over the summer by attorneys in Fairholme Funds v. the United States. Investors, having grown weary of the drawn-out discovery process, filed a motion in August in hopes of speeding things up by forcing the government to stop what they perceive as delay tactics. Attorneys asked the Federal Claims Court to use the “quick peek” procedure for some documents dating back to May 2012.