Guild Mortgage has partnered with FirstREX, a long-term investor in residential properties, in developing a downpayment program with a unique equity financing feature to help people buy larger homes while keeping their monthly mortgage payments low. Launched on Aug. 1, the FirstREX Homebuyer program allows FirstREX to contribute half of the 20 percent required for a Guild home-purchase loan. The 10 percent is an equity investment, not a loan, for which no ...
Lenders will be able to use technology to verify a borrower’s income, assets and credit worthiness in 2017 in Freddie Mac’s Loan Advisor Suite. The announcement was made this week on the heels of Fannie Mae announcing changes to its Desktop Underwriter. With the cost of originating a mortgage more than doubling since pre-crisis times, the GSE said the enhancements were designed to help lenders validate the quality of the loans they originate and help keep costs at a minimum. David Lowman, Freddie’s executive vice president of single-family business, said, “We’re collaborating with lenders to create innovative tools that reduce the costs of producing and selling high-quality loans to us.”
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt said access to credit and supporting underserved markets will be among the goals outlined for the GSEs next year. Although the FHFA will not release a 2017 GSE scorecard until yearend, Watt, speaking at this week’s annual Mortgage Bankers Association convention in Boston, offered a preview of what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will focus on in the coming year. Watt said he expects the GSEs to ramp up research efforts to increase responsible access to credit and affordable housing. He said the average credit scores for GSE purchase loans remain historically high. “Based on the work they have already done and this additional research, we’ll be asking them to...
The first-time homebuyer share of home purchases has declined significantly in recent months, according to the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. First-time homebuyers had a 34.8 percent share of purchases in September, based on a three-month moving average. That was the lowest share for first-time homebuyers since August 2014. The first-timer share has declined for four consecutive months, from 40.4 percent in May. Both current homeowners ...
Some leading mortgage technology vendors told the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau they are concerned about the resources that will be required to implement the changes the bureau wants to make to its integrated disclosure rule known as TRID. In a comment letter to the CFPB regarding its proposed rule to clarify a number of aspects of the TRID regulation, the Mortgage Vendor Regulatory Work Group raised concerns about software implementation resources, including ...
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