The Mortgage Bankers Association is working to reduce the speed talking and fine print that tend to accompany advertisements for mortgages. Currently, ad-disclosure requirements for mortgages vary by state. In August, Illinois became the first state to adopt a uniform ad-disclosure protocol supported by the MBA. Mortgage ads in the Prairie State must now include a reference to the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System and Registry’s consumer access website and cite ...

Stearns Lending this week rolled out a new partnership program to acquire equity stakes in independent retail mortgage banking franchises as it tries to broaden its origination base. Under the company’s “Preferred Partner Platform,” Stearns will offer its lending partners technology and operational support as well as capital markets assistance, said company CEO David Schneider. Participating lenders are able to maintain their brand identity, management and culture. The first acquisition was ...

Variations of a mortgage program that guarantees a $1,000 credit toward borrowers’ closing costs if the loan does not close on time are now a big hit in the market, according to some lenders. Under such programs, lenders provide a guarantee on the timely closing of their loan. If for some reason, closing is delayed or postponed beyond the initial closing date, the originator will pay the borrower $1,000 to cover closing costs. Inside Mortgage Trends looked at three mortgage lenders and found ...

Single-family mortgage business at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac grew substantially from July to August, according to an Inside The GSEs analysis of mortgage-backed securities data. The two firms issued $79.34 billion of single-family MBS last month, a 20.5 percent increase from July’s volume. That brought year-to-date volume to $523.40 billion, down 6.1 percent from the first eight months of 2017. [Includes two data charts.]

So far, the final rule has not been delivered for OMB review, a process that in the past has sometimes taken months to complete.

Mortgage lenders generated an estimated $54.0 billion of new home-equity loans during the second quarter, up 18.7 percent…

The number of mortgage lenders using technology from Blend has quadrupled in the past year…

The pending deal marks the second acquisition in Stearns’ new Preferred Partner Platform initiative…

Silvergate Bank is actively providing warehouse lines of credit to non-QM lenders and we understand that Comerica is now sticking its toe in the water…

After years of talk about “digital mortgages,” now is the time that lenders should adopt such technology, according to Henry Cason, a senior vice president at Fannie Mae and head of digital products for the government-sponsored enterprise’s single-family business.