CoreLogic: Year-Over-Year Foreclosure Inventory Numbers Down Substantially
According to CoreLogic's March National Foreclosure Report, there were 55,000 completed foreclosures in the U.S. in March 2013, down from 66,000 in March...
Cutting Off The Hand To Spite The ARM?
REQUIRED READING: Sometimes rules that are made with the best of intentions end up creating more problems than solutions. A case in point:...
The Top 10 Valuation Best Practices
REQUIRED READING: Mortgage valuations are an exercise in judgment and definitely not something that can be defined in absolute terms. While the exercise...
The Single-Family Rental Asset Class: An Emerging Opportunity For Servicers
REQUIRED READING: The vast majority of families that are somewhere between initial default and foreclosure would prefer to stay in a single-family home...
A New Compliance Era Requires More Vigorous Vendor Training
REQUIRED READING: For the mortgage industry, non-compliance can be costly. Banks and mortgage companies routinely incur millions of dollars in fines and penalties...
The New Rep And Warrants Model And The Repurchase Dilemma
REQUIRED READING: Among the most troubling developments to mortgage originators that followed the financial crisis of 2008 were massive increases of loan repurchase...
Is Your QC In Trouble?
REQUIRED READING: With today's increased scrutiny on the internal operations of lenders and servicers, it is only natural that the requirements for quality...
The Case For Scientific Servicing
REQUIRED READING: When you are making business decisions worth millions of dollars, you want the best information you can get. But it is...
What’s The Difference Between Regulatory Compliance And Rotisserie Chicken?
REQUIRED READING: In the late 1990s, Ron Popeil, the iconic infomercial king, introduced the Showtime Rotisserie, one of his most popular inventions. One...
Working In A New Playing Field, Complete With New Headaches
REQUIRED READING: Disruptions in critical markets are known to bring regulatory change. What is also known, but less talked about, is that these...
Subservicers Work To Remain In Step With Industry Changes
REQUIRED READING: The much-quoted expression 'May you live in interesting times' is reputed to be either a proverb or a curse that originated...
Servicers Need To Pay Extra Attention To Quality Control
REQUIRED READING: The servicing industry is caught up in a whirling maelstrom of change. Whether it's from the 300-plus new standards set out...
Putting Lender-Placed Insurance In The National Spotlight
REQUIRED READING: For many years, lender-placed insurance attracted very little attention outside of the financial services world. That changed dramatically last year, with...
Getting Rid Of ‘Too Big To Fail’ – Part II
REQUIRED READING: It seems to me that efforts by U.S. and global regulators to fight 'too big to fail' are generally on the...
Getting Rid Of ‘Too Big To Fail’ – Part I
REQUIRED READING: I would like to discuss 'too big to fail' and the ongoing work since the financial crisis to end it. More...
A New Era For Women In Mortgage Banking?
REQUIRED READING: After attending the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Annual Convention in October 2012, I was heartened to make a bold assertion: 2013...
The Challenges Of Hedging Enterprise Interest Rate Risk
REQUIRED READING: When lenders think about their company-wide - or enterprise - interest rate (IR) risk, they often compartmentalize the sources of risk,...
Is The Flat-Free Model Flat-Out Unsustainable?
REQUIRED READING: As the default servicing landscape continues to evolve, it is clear that the long-term repercussions of the foreclosure crisis are far...
Looking Beyond The FICO Score
REQUIRED READING: Like it or not, the mortgage industry has entered an era of risk management and more careful underwriting. For some, this...
The Challenges Facing Community Banks – Part Two
REQUIRED READING: While much of the Federal Reserve's regulatory work recently has involved implementing the requirements of the Dodd-Frank Act, we are also...