Since its founding roughly five years ago, mortgage technology vendor Blend has landed five top-10 residential lenders for its digital origination platform and 20 customers overall. It also has raised $60 million in seed money from investors, but has no current plans to tap the private equity market for cash, which is probably a good sign. “We may raise more money, but not at the moment,” said company Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Nima Ghamsari. But is Blend profitable ...

Newfi Lending, an online residential mortgage lender, is looking forward to a big origination year with the consolidation of its product lines under the “Newfi Lending” brand. A multi-channel lender, the Emeryville, CA-based lender previously operated as Nexera Holdings under two national brands – Newfi for its consumer-direct retail business and Bluestream Lending for third-party originations. In conjunction with the change, Newfi’s wholesale-broker business will now be ...

House Financial Services Committee chairman Jeb Hensarling believes it’s a done deal that Cordray will run for office in Ohio…

The nonprime residential market is getting more attention as the big product categories hit the skids.

The MBS collateral includes mortgages from several originators, led by wholesaler United Shore Financial Services…

Watt noted the CRT coverage has come at a financial cost – and that Fannie and Freddie have been paying a premium.

Nonprime products such as subprime and non-qualified mortgage loans held up better than industry mainstays during the sharp drop in origination volume in the first quarter of this year, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. Conventional conforming remained the biggest component of the market, accounting for 53.0 percent of first-lien mortgage originations in the first three months of 2017. But the estimated $204.0 billion of such loans produced during the period was down 36.6 percent from the fourth quarter. Government-insured lending was...[Includes two data tables]

What if the FHFA cuts the payments and hands Treasury an IOU? The possibilities are endless...

The latest twist in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s enforcement of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act involves certain co-marketing activities. It has recently come to light that the CFPB is investigating Zillow for possible RESPA violations apparently having to do with the firm’s practice of co-marketing with loan officers, real estate agents and mortgage lenders. “For years, many industry participants wondered if allowing their real estate agents or loan officers to engage in co-marketing on Zillow Group applications and websites posed a risk to their companies under RESPA. The industry may soon know the answer,” Richard Andreano, a partner at the Ballard Spahr law firm in Washington, DC, noted in a recent online blog post. Andreano’s post cited...

Performance of non-QM loans has been strong, buoyed by good house-price appreciation and the fact there have been no lawsuits based on the ability-to-repay rule.