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Inside Mortgage Trends

September 11, 2015

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Banks Continued to Shed Mortgage Servicing Rights During Second Quarter

Commercial banks and thrifts continued to back away from the business of servicing home mortgages for other investors during the second quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call reports. At the end of June, the industry owned the servicing rights on $4.187 trillion of home loans held by other investors, typically as a result of mortgage securitization. That was down $94.2 billion from the previous quarter, a 2.2 percent decline ... [Includes one data chart] Read More

Mortgage Banking Profits Surged in 2Q15

Improved production efficiency and a favorable outcome on hedges for mortgage servicing rights helped drive a significant increase in mortgage banking profits during the second quarter. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that average net pretax income jumped 55.7 percent from the first quarter to $3.50 million in the second. That was the best pretax income figure since the first quarter of 2013, when the average in the MBA quarterly performance survey was ... Read More

Mortgage Employment Holds Steady

When autumn rolls around, most mortgage firms begin paring staff where they can and start focusing on what lies ahead for the new year. But this time around – thanks to the recent drop in rates – cost-cutting measures may be put on hold, at least for a little while. One area where there could be a spate of new hiring is in senior management positions. Rick Glass, who runs the mortgage recruiting firm RT Glass & Associates, Carmichael, CA, said his phone ... Read More

Loan Mod Tactics Could Lead to More Defaults

Declines in negative equity and improvements to the economy have prompted a shift in the types of loan modifications offered by servicers. Industry analysts have raised concerns that the increased reliance on capitalization loan mods could lead to an increase in defaults. With a capitalization mod, servicers add unpaid mortgage interest and other costs to the unpaid loan balance and amortize the new balance, potentially with a new loan term or interest rate ... Read More

Tight Underwriting Limiting GSE Repurchases

In the years after the financial crisis, lenders have tried to limit the amount of repurchase demands from the government-sponsored enterprises by tightening underwriting requirements, according to an analysis by the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center. The HFPC noted that the percentage of mortgages that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have put back to lenders due to violations of representations and warranties for originations in recent years ... Read More

How to Survive TRID

With the effective date of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s integrated disclosure rule now just weeks away, industry representatives are escalating the amount of compliance advice they are offering to real estate agents and lenders. This week, the Mortgage Bankers Association released a variety of materials to facilitate complete conformity with the bureau’s pending disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act ... Read More

Bank Repurchases Up Slightly in 2Q15

Banks and thrifts repurchased $977.6 million of single-family mortgages during the second quarter of 2015, a 6.6 percent increase over the first quarter, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call-report data. Bank repurchases, which include indemnifications, totaled $1.894 billion for the first half of the year, down 1.2 percent from the first six months of 2014. Bank of America still leads the industry in buybacks with $539 million on a ... [Includes one data chart] Read More

Guaranteed Rate Acquires Call Center

Guaranteed Rate, a retail mortgage lender, continued to expand its business with the acquisition of new call centers and 75 loan officers from Discover Home Loans, which recently announced its decision to exit the mortgage origination business. The new loan officers will join Guaranteed Rate and help generate more loans through its new Digital Mortgage technology, which the company launched in June. The software uses encrypted cloud storage and ... Read More

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