The Federal Housing Finance Agency introduced new upfront fees on Wednesday for some high-balance and second-home loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Upfront fees for high balance loans will increase between 0.25% and 0.75%, tiered by loan-to-value ratio.
loanDepot brings Ginnie Mae loan servicing in-house
loanDepot announced this week that it will begin servicing Ginnie Mae loans in-house, following a 2021 decision to do the same for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-backed loans. The top-ranked nonbank lender said in a press release that servicing Ginnie
Opinion: Mortgage industry will shed 100K jobs this year
The most wonderful time of the year, as the song would have us believe, comes to a close with Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas, Jan. 6. I do hope everyone had a joyous holiday season, spending some relaxing time
What’s holding the industry back from broad-scale digital closing adoption?
For well over a decade, the industry has made steady progress in digitizing mortgage closings. As a result, closings today fall on a spectrum of digitization, with benefits that increase with each component that is digitized and each document that
UWM is bullish on the resurgent private-label market
Pontiac, Michigan-based United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) capitalized on a booming private-label market in 2021 by sponsoring its inaugural securities transaction this past May, a prime jumbo deal involving 508 mortgages with an aggregate principal balance of $351.9 million. That was the start
Offerpad lands $600M more in credit to power iBuying
As Zillow tries to swiftly disentangle itself from iBuying, a one-time competitor may borrow over $600 million more to radically increase its instant home-buying purchases. Offerpad, a Chandler, Arizona-based iBuyer, snared $500 million in a revolving credit facility from an
Clear Capital launches appraisal tool to speed photo review
Appraisal management company Clear Capital, in the latest effort to revamp the appraisal process, hopes to automate property photo reviews to ensure data and photo consistency with its photo review product, ClearPhoto. Clear Capital’s data science team developed the product
Home affordability plummeted in fourth quarter
Homeownership continues to swerve into unaffordable territory, with median-priced single-family homes becoming less affordable in three-quarters of the nation’s market, a report published by ATTOM Data Solutions last week said. Per the report, between October to December 2021, median home
Top of the list: An interview with Ben Caballero
Ben Caballero Each year RealTrends releases its list of the highest performing real estate agents in the country, and, like clockwork, Ben Caballero of Dallas-based HomesUSA tops the list. In 2020, Cabellero reported 6,409 transaction sides — or 18 home
The “Big Four” take on the upstarts in title insurance
This article is part of our HousingWire 2022 forecast series. After the series wraps early next year, join us on February 8 for the HW+ Virtual 2022 Forecast Event. Bringing together some of the top economists and researchers in housing,
The 2021 housing market recap by Logan Mohtashami
A bullish housing market What a year 2021 has been. We started the year with many pundits saying that the U.S. economic recovery was a false story and that we were about to embark on a second housing bubble crash
The secondary market is primed to rise in 2022
This article is part of our HousingWire 2022 forecast series. After the series wraps early next year, join us on February 8 for the HW+ Virtual 2022 Forecast Event. Bringing together some of the top economists and researchers in housing,
HW+ Member Spotlight: Sarah DeCiantis
This week’s HW+ member spotlight features Sarah DeCiantis, chief marketing officer at United Wholesale Mortgage. As a 2019 Vanguard and Women of Influence, DeCiantis is the catalyst behind United Wholesale Mortgage’s strategic approach to marketing, which has helped the company
Originators gear up for the purchase market
This article is part of our HousingWire 2022 forecast series. After the series wraps early next year, join us on February 8 for the HW+ Virtual 2022 Forecast Event. Bringing together some of the top economists and researchers in housing,
What’s next after a historic housing boom?
This article is part of our HousingWire 2022 forecast series. After the series wraps early next year, join us on February 8 for the HW+ Virtual 2022 Forecast Event. Bringing together some of the top economists and researchers in housing,
Have you clearly defined your brokerage’s value proposition?
This article is part of our HousingWire 2022 forecast series. After the series wraps early next year, join us on February 8 for the HW+ Virtual 2022 Forecast Event. Bringing together some of the top economists and researchers in housing,
Servicers prepare to handle forbearance exits
This article is part of our HousingWire 2022 forecast series. After the series wraps early next year, join us on February 8 for the HW+ Virtual 2022 Forecast Event. Bringing together some of the top economists and researchers in housing,
Hope and homebuyers return to Paradise
In November 2018, the deadliest fire in the history of California nearly destroyed Paradise, a 144-year-old town that sits in the Sierra Foothills above the northeastern Sacramento Valley. When the smoke had cleared, Camp Fire left tens of thousands of
HUD ends silence on targeted lending programs
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on Tuesday resolved uncertainty around special purpose credit programs, 45 years after Congress allowed lenders to tailor products to groups that have historically been excluded from homeownership. In a legal memo, HUD
Cash-out refis are in high demand as equity levels skyrocket
Record home price appreciation in recent years has pushed tappable home equity to new heights. According to a report published by data vendor Black Knight this week, the third quarter of 2021 saw a nearly $250 billion dollar increase in
Mortgage applications are up, on the strength of FHA refis
Mortgage applications increased 2% for the week ending Dec. 3, driven by a surge in government refinancings according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) survey published on Wednesday. The increase was mainly driven by the refinance index up 9% from the previous
Master Class: How to become an experience architect
In this fun and informative master class exclusively for HW+ members, Experience.com’s Chief Experience Officer, Brittany Hodak, shares a simple framework every marketing and sales leader can use to design intentional customer journeys, elevating every customer interaction into an experience. No matter
To advance mortgage lending, trust must take backseat to truth
Once upon a time, loans were made on a handshake. That’s not just a platitude; before the Civil War, most Americans were self-employed, there was no federal income tax and banking was decentralized, making it practically impossible to verify a
The Impact of Brand Awareness
Every company has different goals and objectives when it comes to marketing. In my last post, I started to break down HW Media’s findings from a recent survey conducted with SOAR Performance Group to analyze companies’ marketing priorities, tactics and
