Firms that specialize in subservicing increased their contracts by 2.7 percent in the fourth quarter and by 21.3 percent from a year ago, according to a new tally from Inside Mortgage Finance. In general, the outlook for the sector is strong, but a handful of firms aren’t growing their business by very much. And one firm – Ocwen Financial – experienced a large decline in contracts during the period. At yearend, Ocwen subserviced...[Includes one data table]
A number of home buyers have been duped by hackers in an e-mail and money wiring scam involving purchase mortgages, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC posted a warning about scammers “phishing” for settlement fees late last week. In a phishing scheme, fraudsters impersonate a business online in an effort to trick a consumer. “Hackers have been breaking...
Independent mortgage banks and mortgage subsidiaries of chartered banks were only able to squeeze out a paltry net gain of $493 on each loan they cranked out in the fourth quarter of 2015, a fraction of the $1,238 generated in the third quarter of 2015, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Quarterly Mortgage Bankers Performance Report. Proximity and correlation are not necessarily causation. But sometimes they are. In this case, TRID probably had something to do with the plunge. “Production profits dropped by over 60 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to the third quarter,” said Marina Walsh, MBA’s vice president of industry analysis. “With the Know Before You Owe (TRID) rule going into effect last Oct. 3 ...