Mortgage customer satisfaction has improved this year compared to the previous year as lenders adopted new digital technology and improved efficiency, according to the J.D. Power 2015 U.S. Primary Mortgage Origination Satisfaction Survey. Overall customer satisfaction with the mortgage process averaged 793 in 2015, up 7 points from 2014. Customers expressed a high degree of satisfaction – a 22-point gain from the previous year – with the speed of the loan process ...

Current readings from the house price-to-rent ratio point to the potential for a bubble in the housing market, according to John Williams, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. “I am starting to see signs of imbalances emerge in the form of high asset prices, especially in real estate, and that trips the alert system,” Williams said in a speech this month. He noted that the house price-to-rent ratio is close to where it was in 2003, and home prices continue to increase ...

With the CFPB’s legal action against PHH Corp. pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, a number of experts are revisiting the bureau’s enforcement actions related to marketing services agreements for clues as to how best to proceed going forward. What some of them are finding should give the industry pause. During a webinar this week, Jonathan Foxx, president and managing director at Lenders Compliance Group, a consulting firm ...

Repurchases and indemnifications by banks and thrifts fell to “just” $936.0 million in the third quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of bank call-report data. That was the lowest quarterly buyback figure for the industry since the first quarter of 2008, when banks began disclosing this activity in their call reports. The third-quarter repurchase total was down 17.9 percent from the previous three-month period. On a ... [Includes one data chart]

An estimated 32.5 percent freefall in refi originations during 3Q had a much bigger impact on the conventional market than on government-insured lending.

Quite a few executives believe the central bank should move forward with a “one and done” strategy and be done with it...

Given the president’s intention to defend the Dodd-Frank Act for the remainder of his term, an industry-wide QM safe harbor for portfolio mortgages is “a heavy lift,” said former FHA chief Dave Stevens.

Some realtors who have closed sales subject to TRID said the process went smoothly while others reported extended potential closing timelines...

The bottom fell out of the mortgage-refinance market in the third quarter of 2015, and not even a historic surge in purchase-money lending could pick up the slack, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking. An estimated 32.5 percent freefall in refi originations during the third quarter had a much bigger impact on the conventional market than on government-insured lending. Conventional-conforming mortgage production fell ... [Includes two data charts]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new integrated disclosure rule didn’t cause a sig-nificant spike in delayed home sales in October, according to the latest Campbell/Inside MortgageFinance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. The Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure rule took effect near the beginning of October. Many industry participants predicted that the new rule would disrupt mortgage closings ...