Cart

Inside Mortgage Trends

July 31, 2015

View Archived Issues

Banks Post Strong Gains in Mortgage-Banking Income in Second Quarter

A broad sample of 25 publicly traded banks reported strong earnings from their mortgage-banking operations during the second quarter of 2015, a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis reveals. The group, which includes the four megabanks and the major regionals involved in the sector, reported a combined $4.391 billion in mortgage-banking income for the second quarter. That was up 19.6 percent from the first quarter of this year, and it ... [Includes one data chart] Read More

Underwriting Loosening Mainly in Agency Market

Lenders have slowly loosened underwriting standards since the third quarter of 2013, with the credit expansion largely focused on the agency market, according to a new analysis by the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center. Actions by the government-sponsored enterprises and the FHA to address buyback risk appear to have helped prompt lenders to loosen underwriting standards on agency loans. The HFPC’s credit availability index tracks ... Read More

Little Change in GSE Risk Profile in 2015

Mortgage lenders that sell loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are still focused on delivering single-family mortgages with relatively low credit risk, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of loan-level data from the government-sponsored enterprises. In the second quarter of 2015, 66.4 percent of loans sold to the GSEs had credit scores of 740 or higher. That was up from 64.4 percent in the first quarter and 60.6 percent during ... [Includes one data chart] Read More

‘Fix-and-Flip’ Market Looking a Bit Frothy

The market for “fix-and-flip” properties is starting to look frothy in certain metropolitan areas, but that isn’t stopping California Capital Real Estate Advisors from moving ahead with its plan to raise $100 million from investors. CalCap has carved out a specialty niche over the past five years of funding developers and contractors in California whose goal is to buy mostly distressed properties on the cheap, fix them and sell them quickly. The privately held nonbank ... Read More

The Millennial Secret: Look Like Them, Hire Them

The conversation about the “millennial” generation and its effect on the housing and mortgage markets just isn’t going away. Although some mortgage professionals confess to being sick and tired of hearing about the millennials, they can’t argue that, at 82 million strong, those born between 1980 and 1999 are a home-buying force to be reckoned with. But selling loans to them isn’t always so easy. “These new arrivals to the home-buying scene want to text and email ... Read More

User Authentication Critical to E-Signature Success

With the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau bringing its considerable weight to bear on e-mortgages as part of a broader push to reinvent the origination process, mortgage lenders and the technology vendors and consultants that serve them have been paying more attention to reconstituting existing processes to support a more digital format. E-signatures play a key role, and perhaps the single most critical component of e-signature technology is user authentication ... Read More

California Top Market for Mortgage Insurance

California generated more than twice as many home loans that carried some form of primary mortgage insurance than any other state, but relatively few loans there are actually insured, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis. A total of $45.45 billion of insured California loans were securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae during the first six months of 2015. Second-place Texas had less than half that amount, $20.15 billion ... [Includes one data chart] Read More

Latest Imf News

More Imf News

Featured Data

More Featured Data

Featured Reports

More Latest Reports

Featured Poll

As homeowner equity continues to build, more and more lenders are launching home equity lending products. Are you thinking of joining this market?

View Results