I’ve been going back and forth this morning on what I want to blog about. On one hand I want to talk about the market… as we speak the 10-yr is at 3.081% and we’re preparing for a decent lock day. We’re also on the heels of what appeared to be a HUGE conference in Las Vegas last week as the new broker advocacy outfit, AIME, hosted their first event. We sent our young gun Peter Gallagher out there to cover the event and all he said when he came back was “the broker community i

Over the past week or so we’ve diverted our attention off the details of the mortgage industry to discuss more whimsical topics… like the Pittsburgh Marathon, Amazon and Apple’s breach into the housing market and why you should move to Charleston, SC… so I’d like to roll up our sleeves are dive back into the details. First and foremost, the 10-yr Treasury is up over 3% and will probably stay that way until the end of the year. It’s time to get used to these numbers…4.5%, 4.62

Last Thursday, Freddie Mac released a new conventional 3% down program. The program is designed to help qualified first-time homebuyers obtain financing for their home. That seems simple enough, right? I mean… didn’t Freddie already have this program though? The short answer is yes (FHLMC HomePossible offers 3% down with certain restrictions) …however their newest version of this program, called HomeOne, will remove the geographic and income restrictions that come with the Ho

In our industry, it’s normal rhetoric to hear phrases like “a $400,000 loan amount”, or “our goal is to fund $350 million this month”, but you don’t normally hear this one… one BILLION dollars. Now that’s a number that grabs a lot of attention. And typically, that would be a number that Timothy Sloan, Wells Fargo President and CEO, would write on a white-board during projected sales meetings. However, that dollar amount just had a much bigger effect on Timothy and his company

Predatory lending, a term usually reserved for counties around Chicago, is popping up in New York of all places. New York has one of the highest costs of living in the country paired with high demand for property that makes the real estate market very competitive. Some homeowners may not be able to afford large down payments or the inflated real estate prices so may look to rent-to-own or lease-to-own contracts to make their dream of home ownership real. The New York Depar

When the CFPB director stepped down, it caused a mess that resulted in lawsuits and two directors showing up to work on the same day. Needless to say, there was a bit of chaos. Who would have thought that the turmoil caused from the changing of the guard would create bipartisan support in both the House and Senate? Congress had trouble agreeing on a solution to keep the lights on, but two different pieces of legislation yesterday saw signs of movement that could be a sign

Have you been following the PHH v. CFPB case? No? Me either, but I did find the most recent ruling in the case very interesting… so we’re going to talk about it today. To give you some background PHH (a big player in the non-bank mortgage lender/loan servicing space) filed an appeal against the CFPB in 2014 after the agency slapped a $109 million fine against them for taking kickbacks for mortgage referrals. The case called into question the constitutionality of the governmen

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash I’m going to keep it short and sweet for everyone today. Not because I don’t enjoy writing and informing everyone about what’s going on in our industry; rather it’s because I came out to our corporate office in New Jersey this week, overbooked myself and for some reason thought there were more than 24 hours in a day… odd right? Honestly, it’s more common than you think, and the American Psychological Association has been studying the harmful

Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash I’ll save you the details and keep this short and sweet… Mel Watt the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) believes that Freddie and Fannie should go back to being private entities BUT (and that’s a Sir Mix-a-Lot sized BUT) Uncle Sam must provide a guarantee in case a 2008 sized meltdown happens again. Watt’s comments were spelled out in a detailed letter sent to the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. The letter went on to su

Photo by Benjamin Faust on Unsplash Back in December Ginnie Mae clamped down on their oversight of VA refinances to protect servicemembers and military veterans from entering potentially risky refinances for their mortgages… however, that was not enough and now a bipartisan group of senators have drafted a bill to help protect VA borrowers for good. The bill, which is properly named the “Protecting Veterans from Predatory Lending Act of 2018”, calls for lenders to certify tha

Yesterday, I mentioned that there might be more of an appetite for refinances in 2018, but when will we see Millennials flex their buying power and invest in new homes? I’m not sure it’s going to be any time soon… as a new report from HousingWire states that nearly 40% of students with college loans could default by 2023. Wow… that’s a staggering number and maybe the CFPB should do a hard pivot away from the mortgage industry and start considering how our country lends money

Photo by Blake Wheeler on Unsplash We’ve been hearing for years that the refi market has dried up and if you aren’t dialed into the purchase market your volume is going to dip… or even worse completely dry up. That might have been true for a few years, but it looks like the tide might be turning on that statement. Black Knight Data & Analytics reported that homeowners (with mortgages) have an estimated $5.5 trillion available to them in home equity… whoa, whoa back it up (bee

During everyone’s favorite week of the year (when Christmas ends and we’re waiting on the New Year) a report came out stating that the Trump Adminstration is considering, J. Mark McWatters to take over as the head of the CFPB. As I’m sure you can imagine, some banking institutions are a bit skittish about hearing McWatters name thrown around at the CFPB. As the chair of the NCUA, McWatters has been vocal about cutting back the amount of oversight the CFPB has on credit unions

We’re only a few days away from 2018, which according to a bunch of 80’s movies we should have already seen Dr. David Bowman disconnect the HAL 9000 computer and discover the true secrets of the monolith (2001: A Space Odyssey), Marty McFly and Doc Brown flying around in a DeLorean (Back to the Future Part II) and who could forget Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken in Escape from L.A.? He saved the President’s daughter and in the process stopped all technological activity on the

As we discussed on Monday, the IRS made an updated to their Income Verification Express System (IVES) earlier this month. The changes were designed to protect tax payers against looming cyber threats (insert ominous music). Immediately following the update, reports of delays in processing borrower tax validations poured in. Whatever the issues are (P.S. we still don’t know what specifically is wrong with the system) it’s leading to the validations being done manually… ugh act

Photo by Olga DeLawrence on Unsplash The interim head of the CFPB, Mick Mulvaney, was reviewing the settlement that called for Wells Fargo to pay out millions in fines for the issues surrounding the fake accounts that were created, as well as refund borrowers approx. $98 million in erroneous rate lock extension fees. It appeared that Mulvaney was going to wipe the slate clean and then Trump did what Trump tends to do… and tweeted about his stance on the matter: “Fines and pen

Ellie Mae’s latest “Millennial tracker” data showed that 60% of women who were listed as the primary borrower in October were single… as compared to the 42% that were single men. Even though men make up the lion share of the overall Millennial borrower population, most of them are married. As we continue to see Millennials exercise their buying power… make sure you’re marketing your products accordingly. Here is an article that goes into more details about Ellie Mae’s newest

Photo by Jomar Thomas on Unsplash Yesterday, public statements from the Mortgage Bankers Association, the Independent Community Bankers of America and the National Association of Home Builders rang out like cheers from a packed NFL stadium on a Sunday afternoon… why you ask? Well, it’s because the Senate Banking Committee took out their big red marker and began working on a repeal of the famous, or now infamous Dodd-Frank Act Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Th

Yesterday’s post talked about how lenders are using specific demographic data to create new business strategies. But let’s be honest, data only tells part of the story (and can be boring) and usually you learn the most when you look at what’s actually happening in the world around you. This article from National Mortgage News tells a story of how one mortgage executive used an experience in his own life to identify a need in a surrounding community. That translated into build

Something new to report… nobody knows what’s going in Washington D.C., particularly regarding the appointment of the new acting director of the CFPB. In an effort to block Mick Mulvaney ever stepping foot into the CFPB offices… the deputy director of the CFPB, Leandra English, sued the Trump administration late Sunday evening (that’s typically when I like to file my lawsuits as well). You can check out the paperwork here. What does this mean for the Mulvaney and the CFPB? Not