Since the November election, mortgage rates have spiked roughly 75 basis points, promising to snuff out the refinancing market and possibly leading to a spate of industry layoffs. But so far, it appears that many firms are keeping their cost-cutting powder dry. “Application volume has been pretty much the same,” said Paul Rozo, CEO of nonbank originator Paramount Residential Mortgage Group, Corona, CA. “I think it’s too early in the game to be thinking about layoffs.” Marc Savitt, a principal in The Mortgage Center, a small West Virginia-based brokerage firm, said...

Mortgage lenders and other employers that have made or are preparing to implement changes to comply with the Department of Labor’s revised overtime pay regulations may have to reevaluate whether to hold off or go forward with those plans, according to wage and overtime experts. On Nov. 22, Judge Amos Mazzant of the Eastern District of Texas granted a request by several states to block the new overtime pay rules that would have gone into effect on Dec. 1. The judge issued a preliminary injunction after determining that the DOL did not have the authority to decide whether workers should be paid overtime based on their salary level alone. Mazzant agreed...

Some banks have reclassified mortgage loan officer duties as a way to avoid paying overtime, IMFnews was told.

In case you haven’t noticed: the national debt is ready to crack the $20 trillion mark – almost twice the dollar volume of outstanding residential debt in the United States.

The MBA said the calls would generally be from servicers to borrowers, seeking to determine the reasons and nature of a delinquency…

Moreover, anyone close to Richard Cordray has likely been working on their resume since Tuesday night, Nov. 8…

Is the 10-year bond in for a massive correction? Maybe, maybe not...

In a development of keen interest to mortgage loan officers, a federal judge in Texas this week granted states’ motion to block the Department of Labor’s controversial overtime pay final rule set to take effect on Dec. 1, 2016.

Returning appraisal regulations back to the individual states would be counterproductive, according to James Park, executive director of the Appraisal Subcommittee of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. Park and other experts spoke about the need for standardization and modernization at a hearing in the House Financial Services Committee this week. “Replacing the federal system with a state-based system would confuse, not streamline,” he said, noting that the “cornucopia” of statutes and guidelines are confusing and burdensome for everyone. Bill Garber, director of government and external relations at the Appraisal Institute, agreed...

Americans spend an average of 6 hours per day on social and mobile media, which has taken over television viewing.