California Court of Appeals Invalidates Default Interest Provision
Default interest is a hot button for borrowers, lenders, and the courts. Most courts inherently do not like default interest because they see it...
How Mortgage Servicers Can Navigate Rising ARMs Successfully
Adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) are making a comeback. In 2021, when the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 2.65%, there was little demand for ARMs....
Finding Growth with Loan Product Innovation
As the market continues to slow, lenders are finding the need to look beyond the traditional loan products that sold so well during the...
How Lenders Can Capitalize on a Resurgent Market for HELOCs
American homeowners are spending more time at home and are looking to upgrade the spaces where they spend most of their time. Fortunately, many...
How Lenders Can Utilize CRM to Grow Sales
As interest rates continue to rise and as call volume from potential borrowers declines, it is crucial for mortgage lenders to implement effective strategies...
Combatting the Challenges of Housing Affordability
Affordability in housing is top of mind for many both inside and outside of the mortgage industry. For many potential first-time homebuyers, the combination...
Rate of Critical Defects Fell Again in Q1, as Mortgage Lenders Prepare to Stretch...
The rate of critical defects in mortgage loans stood at 1.93% as of the end of the first quarter of 2022, down 0.2% compared...
Rate Lock Volume Increased in August But Remains Sharply Down From Last Year
Mortgage rate lock volume increased in August, due mainly to lower mortgage rates, but remains sharply down from a year ago.
Mortgage Capital Trading’s (MCT)...
Why a Better Services Strategy Solves a Mortgage Lender’s Inefficiency Problem
The resounding message at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Secondary Marketing Conference echoed what we heard loud and clear at this spring’s MBA Tech...
Reducing Disparity in the Minority Homeownership Rate
Driven mainly by the pandemic and subsequent demand for detached single-family homes, the U.S. homeownership rate jumped to 65.5% in 2020, an increase of...
Renovation: A Path to Fair Lending
Think the Community Reinvestment Act’s (CRA’s) focus on measuring how many loans are made to underserved, largely low- and moderate-income communities does not apply...
Lending Compliance and Limited English Proficiency Consumers: What Lenders Need to Know
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that more than 60 million Americans over age five - about 20% of the U.S. population - speak a language other...
New Home Sales Slid in March as Affordability Concerns Kicked In
New home sales are often a good barometer of the housing market because, if completed new homes aren’t moving, it probably means buyers are...
How the Cloud is Giving Lenders Greater Control
Increasingly, mortgage lenders are making the cloud a priority in their strategic technology investments and gaining operational efficiencies through new cloud-based technology from large...
Compliance Basics for New Mortgage Professionals
Over the last decade, many professionals have left the mortgage industry. Between the housing crash, rising rates, low inventory, forbearances and all the resulting...
CoreLogic: Home Prices Continued to Rise Rapidly in February, Smashing Records
U.S. home prices jumped 2.2% in February compared with January and were up 20% compared with February 2021, according to CoreLogic’s home price index...
New Home Sales Jumped 14 Percent in September as Demand Outstrips Supply
New home sales were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 800,000 in September, an increase of 14.0% compared with a revised 702,000 in...
Setting the Right Strategy for 2022
The Mortgage Bankers Association’s mortgage volume forecast is the writing on the wall. It shows that the refinancings that accounted for over 75% of...
Mortgage Delinquency Rate Fell to Nearly Pre-Pandemic Levels in July
The U.S. mortgage delinquency rate fell to nearly pre-pandemic levels in July, decreasing to 4.2% of all mortgages. However, serious delinquencies remained elevated, according...
Case-Shiller: Home Price Growth Has Shattered Records for Four Consecutive Months
Lack of inventory coupled with strong demand for single-family housing due to the pandemic continued to push home prices to record highs in July,...