The FHA has announced that protocols in place for second appraisal requirements for certain Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans are now fully automated.

The home-equity market peaked back in 2007 at $1.133 trillion in outstandings. It has been in an 11-year swoon since then.

Loans from 36 lenders will be included, led by Sprout Mortgage with a 43.3 percent share.

Home-equity lending remains one of the soft spots in the mortgage market, as the supply of loans outstanding continued to shrink and new lending volume remained anemic in the third quarter. [Includes three data charts.]

Negative equity – or even just the perception of it – is the most important determinant of default rates, according to a recent study by Collateral Analytics.

However, retail remains king of the jumbo sector…

Based in Henderson, NV, Sprout is a correspondent lender.

Retail originations declined more than third-party production in the three major mortgage-product categories during the third quarter of 2018, according to a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends. Based on survey data from a broad cross-section of lenders, retail originations fell 8.8 percent from the second to the third quarter. The wholesale-broker sector was down 1.9 percent, while correspondent production posted a 1.9 percent increase. The data ... [Includes two data charts]

Ocwen, which paid $360 million in cash for PHH, also disclosed: “The purchase price we negotiated contemplated PHH could continue to incur losses.”

Carrington Mortgage is working on its first non-QM securitization...