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Inside Mortgage Trends

March 16, 2018

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Detailed Disclosures Can Smooth M&A Approvals

Approvals by state regulators and federal agencies of mortgage-related mergers and acquisitions can drag on for a variety of reasons, but lenders and servicers can help speed the process by providing detailed disclosures, according to industry attorneys. Keisha Whitehall Wolfe, counsel at the law firm of Mayer Brown, suggested providing regulators with details about what is changing at a company due to pending M&A activity and what isn’t changing. She suggested providing a ... Read More

Mortgage Jobs Outlook: a Bit Grainy

Mortgage rates fell this week for the first time in almost two months, but the respite may not be enough to save the industry from what could turn out to be a brutal round of belt-tightening and job cuts. Then again, it all depends on what type of lender you work for. According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Trends over the past few weeks, many conventional lenders are being extremely cautious about their headcounts, while non-agency originators are feeling ... Read More

Relatively Low Homeownership Rate Could Persist

Projections for gradual increases to the homeownership rate might be overly optimistic, according to some industry analysts. The homeownership rate fell to the lowest level on record in 2016 and then rose in 2017 on an annual basis for the first time since 2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Some industry participants predict that the rate will likely continue to climb gradually, citing declines in renter households and other trends. However, an analysis by Laurie Goodman and ... Read More

$16 Billion in Financed Flips in 2017, Study Finds

House-flip purchase financing totaled $16.1 billion in 2017, up 27 percent from $12.7 billion in 2016 – its highest dollar volume in a decade, according to ATTOM Data Solutions’ fourth quarter and yearend home-flipping report. The report showed 207,088 single-family houses and condominiums were flipped last year, a 1 percent increase year-over-year. It was the highest total of homes flipped since 2006. The flipped houses represented 5.9 percent of all single-family homes and ... Read More

Experian Bids to Make Better Use of Trended Data

Credit reporting company Experian recently introduced a new product to provide lenders with a wider view into client behavior over time with records from all three national credit bureaus. The new product, Trended 3D, would synthesize a 24-month history of five key credit report fields – balance, credit limit or original loan amount, scheduled payment amount, actual payment amount, and last payment date – and provide a spectrum of user trends. Experian said a conventional credit report is ... Read More

Caliber Home Loans Launches Mobile Platform

Caliber Home Loans has announced a new mobile platform designed to simplify the loan process for borrowers and key players in the homebuying and mortgage financing chain. The platform features three mobile phone apps customized for borrowers, Caliber’s sales force, real estate agents and homebuilders. The apps provides efficient and effective communication among all parties from home shopping to as far as servicing the loan. “We are a retail shop that provides .. Read More

Bank MSR Portfolio Down Again in 4Q17

Commercial banks and savings institutions serviced $3.621 trillion in home loans for other investors at the end of 2017, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call-report data. After a brief spurt higher in the third quarter, bank servicing-for-others was down 0.8 percent during the final three months of the year. The industry’s SFO balance had been dropping steadily since the end of 2010 – with declining balances in 20 of 22 quarters – as many ... [Includes one data chart] Read More

Mortgage Banking Income Hit From Both Sides in 2017, Analysis Shows

Earnings from production-related activity and servicing fell modestly in the fourth quarter, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports filed by a dozen top publicly traded companies. The 12 lenders reported a combined $1.125 billion in income from loan originations and secondary market sales during the fourth quarter. That was down 9.0 percent from the previous period. Some of the earnings decline resulted from a slowdown ... [Includes one data chart] Read More

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