With razor-thin production margins becoming the norm this year, some originators are thinking about, or moving ahead with plans to trim the compensation levels of their most valuable asset: loan officers.
The incidence of defects in mortgage loan applications has decreased significantly in the last five years, according to First American Financial’s Loan Application Defect Index.
Are mortgage lenders in the financial services business? The answer from the Internal Revenue Service on that question will determine whether lenders organized as pass-through entities can take a significant deduction included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Originations of purchase mortgages are expected to increase this year even though interest rates and home prices continue to rise. “The underlying demand for buying a home is holding up, and will continue to do so, as long as the economy is generating solid job and income growth,” said Sam Khater, chief economist at Freddie Mac.
Commercial banks and savings institutions once again reduced their holdings of mortgage servicing rights during the first quarter of 2018, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call-report data. [Includes one data chart.]
Trading in mortgage servicing rights is as good as it’s been for years, but it remains a small market full of pricing and transactional irregularities, according to industry experts speaking on a panel at the secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association last month.
Retail loan production gained share in the jumbo and government-insured markets during the first quarter of 2018 but lost a little ground in the conventional-conforming space, according to survey data compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance. [Includes two data charts.]
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