With interest rates projected to rise, lenders are putting an increased emphasis on purchase mortgages. A little-used feature in post-crisis originations could help boost purchase-mortgage originations: temporary interest rate buydowns. A temporary buydown can help increase a lender’s “market potential” by offering borrowers lower initial payments and the stability of predictable payment increases, according to Freddie Mac. Temporary buydowns generally last...

Almost every week it seems like a lender launches a digital mortgage process allowing for loan applications to be received and processed online effortlessly and efficiently. However, according to a recent survey of lenders, a number of barriers stand in the way of digital mortgages. Lenders cited various technology issues, costs and difficulties getting loan officers to change behavior as barriers to digitizing the mortgage process. Some 73 lenders participated in the survey administered by the Strategic Mortgage Finance Group earlier this year. The top barrier to digital mortgage offerings was...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency wants to know how Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks can better help borrowers with limited English proficiency (LEP) throughout the entire mortgage cycle, from lending to servicing. With the numbers of individuals not able to speak English fluently growing in the U.S., the FHFA wants to learn more about some of the procedures and tools that originators, servicers, and other parties in the mortgage lending process currently use to help LEP borrowers. To better understand the challenges, the FHFA issued...

Deephaven Mortgage is preparing to issue its second nonprime MBS of the year...

Freedom Mortgage, a nonbank, was the top VA originator in the first quarter with USAA Federal and loanDepot ranking second and third, respectively…

The GSE patch expires either in January 2021, seven years after the effective date of the ATR rule, or when the GSEs are taken out of conservatorship, whichever comes first…

AIG buys jumbos servicing-released with Cenlar acting as the subservicer.

Commenting on the latest revelation from Walter, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods said, “Given the lack of visibility, we maintain our underperform rating and $1 price target.”

In the lawsuit, Ocwen admitted that it had stopped paying some of the invoices sent to it by FIS because of what it called “improper and non-compliant billing practices…

“Even with optimal outcomes agreed by all parties in a typical three- to five-year contract, public and private company CEOs find themselves constantly under the ‘results’ microscope," said consultant Paul Hindman.