Mortgage bankers ended a very good year in 2016 on a somewhat offbeat note as overall company profits sagged and production margins shrank. The average mortgage-banking operation generated $3.513 million in pretax income during the fourth quarter of 2016, according to the latest data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. That was down 10.8 percent from the average pretax income in the trade group’s third-quarter Mortgage Bankers Performance report ...
Over the past three years, Walter Investment Management Corp. has posted net losses totaling $902.6 million – more than any other publicly traded mortgage company with the exception of one: Ocwen Financial, which lost $915.6 million over that period. And while Ocwen may finally be turning the corner in terms of both its regulatory problems and negative cashflow, the jury is still out on Walter, which saw its stock price fall to less than 70 cents a share this week ...
Credit bureau Experian and data services vendor Finicity have partnered to come up with a digital verification capability to help bring the lending industry to the point where a “10-by-10” mortgage becomes the norm; that is, a loan application that can be completed in 10 minutes, and the resulting mortgage closed in 10 days. Experian said its new Digital Verification Solutions will provide verification of assets and income by utilizing Finicity’s data aggregation and insight platform ...
If left unresolved, the tightness of mortgage credit would result in a much lower percentage of homeowners because most potential new homebuyers would likely be Hispanic or nonwhite – groups with lower income, less wealth and lower credit scores, according to a new study by the Urban Institute. Author Laurie Goodman, co-director of UI’s Housing Finance Policy Center, noted the very tight mortgage credit situation that has developed since the mortgage crisis, which she attributed to mortgage lenders becoming more cautious than ever in their lending.
A program launched in September to provide grants to mortgage brokers has helped launch 15 new independent mortgage brokerage shops, according to the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. The NAMB KickStart program provides a grant of up to $10,000 to help launch broker operations. The program started with financial support from United Wholesale Mortgage. “After mega banks pinned mortgage brokers as the scapegoats of the financial crisis in ...
Some 53.7 percent of newly originated mortgages delivered into agency mortgage-backed securities programs last year were generated through lenders’ retail production operations, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis. Correspondents accounted for the next largest share, 33.4 percent, of loans sold to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. The data exclude mortgages that were over six months old when they were securitized ... [Includes two data charts]
Although 2017 is expected to be a down year for originations, Freedom Mortgage – already a top-10 ranked lender – is poised for growth via mergers and acquisitions and is pondering deals for both servicing rights and other shops. Company CEO and founder Stanley Middleman told Inside Mortgage Finance bluntly: “We’re shopping.” Although Middleman declined to name any targets, he said...
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