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Inside Mortgage Trends

May 19, 2017

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Legacy Buyback Issues Fade Further Into the Rearview Mirror in Early 2017

Mortgage originators and the government-sponsored enterprises in the first quarter of 2017 continued to distance themselves from the contentious sparring over repurchase demands related to loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac prior to the housing market collapse. An exclusive Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of GSE repurchase disclosures shows a spike upward in total repurchases during the first quarter, but the move was linked to ... [Includes two data charts] Read More

Nonbanks Report Dour 1Q17 Earnings

Publicly traded nonbank mortgage lenders and servicers reported weak earnings during the first quarter of 2017, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends summary. The nine nonbank lenders posted a combined profit of $116.69 million for the first three months of the year. That was down 79.4 percent from the fourth quarter, although it represented a huge improvement from the $509.68 million loss the group recorded in the first three months of 2016 ... [Includes one data chart] Read More

Blend Wants to Help ‘Digitize’ Mortgages

Since its founding roughly five years ago, mortgage technology vendor Blend has landed five top-10 residential lenders for its digital origination platform and 20 customers overall. It also has raised $60 million in seed money from investors, but has no current plans to tap the private equity market for cash, which is probably a good sign. “We may raise more money, but not at the moment,” said company Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Nima Ghamsari. But is Blend profitable ... Read More

Subservicers Require Due Diligence, Monitoring

As lenders increasingly turn to subservicers to handle various functions, up-front due diligence and ongoing monitoring are necessary to help increase originations and maximize return on investment, according to Kurt Blohm, a senior manager at Richey May & Co. Blohm is the leader of the consulting firm’s subservicer oversight review service and he recently authored a white paper on selection and oversight responsibilities for holders of mortgage servicing rights ... Read More

Digitalizing the Back Office is the Next ‘Big Thing’

Plenty of attention continues to be paid to online mortgage shopping and to getting the e-mortgage off the ground in hopes of revolutionizing the entire home loan origination experience for the consumer. But if the potential of digitalization and related technologies is to be fully realized, the back office needs to be addressed, and soon; otherwise lenders run the risk of creating massive backlogs because of the resultant choke points. On the first point, Nate Longfellow ... Read More

Newfi Hopes New Brand Will Spur Production

Newfi Lending, an online residential mortgage lender, is looking forward to a big origination year with the consolidation of its product lines under the “Newfi Lending” brand. A multi-channel lender, the Emeryville, CA-based lender previously operated as Nexera Holdings under two national brands – Newfi for its consumer-direct retail business and Bluestream Lending for third-party originations. In conjunction with the change, Newfi’s wholesale-broker business will now be ... Read More

MSR Holdings Seen as Helpful for Nonbanks

As interest rates increase, nonbanks’ holdings of mortgage servicing rights will help offset losses tied to lower originations, according to analysts at S&P Global Ratings. “We expect market trends affecting nonbank mortgage companies to change dramatically now that rising interest rates are driving MSR valuations higher,” the rating service said in a recent report. Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Bankers Association separately forecast that the average interest rate ... Read More

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