housing wire

The secondary market for mortgage servicing rights, or MSRs, has been heating up recently as interest rates tick up, increasing the value of MSR assets, and as other revenue streams for lenders begin to slow — such as loan refinancing.

In several previous articles I have opined that an increase in mortgage rates may be our only hope for slowing the escalation of home prices that we’ve been experiencing for the past year. With mortgage rates hitting above 3% last

Zillow on Thursday completed its $500 million acquisition of ShowingTime, which real estate agents use to schedule home viewings, as federal regulators did not extend their window to review the deal. The Seattle-based home listings platform had announced buying the

Despite record-high home prices, home equity may not save some borrowers in forbearance from foreclosure, according to a Black Knight’s report published Monday. Since 2010, around 10% of borrowers with more than 120 days in delinquency were referred to foreclosure,

If you were tasked with defining the word “leadership,” how would you explain what it means? The word encapsulates so much, and yet according to Merriam-Webster, it can be summed up as “the power or ability to lead other people.”

PennyMac announced this week that it is upping conforming loan limits by almost 14% through broker and correspondent channels. According to PennyMac, for a one-unit property a borrower could receive $625,000, an increase of almost $75,000 from the maximum loan

With the purchase market becoming a primary emphasis for lenders in 2021, HousingWire sat down with CreditXpert VP of Marketing Mike Darne to talk about credit trends in a purchase market and how that impact lenders’ pipelines. HousingWire: We know

Pending home sales rose in August, following two consecutive months of decline, according to the National Association of Realtor’s pending home sales index report released on Wednesday. And homebuyers with flexibility are keen on more moderately priced regions within the

Real estate brokerages can survive, but only if they seriously invest in mortgage. So said members of a panel Tuesday on the evolution of the real estate brokerage during HousingWire Annual in Frisco, Texas. Today the value of a single

Mortgage application volume declined by 1.1% for the week ending Sept. 24, after a rebound in the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Pushing the decline was the purchase index, which dipped by 1.2% from the previous

LoanDepot CEO Anthony Hsieh After an origination team departed loanDepot in April of this year, loanDepot slammed the seven ex-employees and their new employer, CrossCountry Mortgage, with a lawsuit alleging they “hatched and implemented a scheme to loot loanDepot’s business.”

Mortgage companies must focus on bolstering cybersecurity infrastructure, and should report any and all incursions from bad actors who seek access to sensitive information or who plan to encrypt systems to hold for ransom. This was a core part of

Loan origination-related consumer complaints rose significantly over the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) report published last week. The bureau’s research brief, which analyzed the relationship between U.S. Census characteristics and

Largely driven by record-low mortgage rates, lending volume surpassed everyone’s expectations in the past year. But as lenders scrambled to keep up with demand, closing errors naturally crept in.  In the wake of this unparalleled volume, companies across the housing

July marked the fourth consecutive month in which the growth rate of home prices set a record, according to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index Report released on Tuesday. The index showed a 19.7% annual gain for

Lisa Dunn, partner/owner at LAUREL Real Estate Resources Continuing our new HW+ member spotlight series, we’re featuring Lisa Dunn, partner/owner at LAUREL Real Estate Resources. She specializes in residential real estate throughout Orange County, California, and is currently celebrating over 25

The average 30-year-fixed mortgage rose, ever so slightly, to 2.88% for the week ending Sept. 23, according to Freddie Mac‘s latest PMMS survey. Mortgage rates have been roughly flat for months now. “The slowdown in economic growth around the world

Appraisers have experienced many challenges in the last couple of years. From juggling high volume demand for appraisals in the middle of a pandemic, appraisers had to radically change their processes. Most took these challenges in stride and adopted innovative

Appraisal management company Clear Capital is looking to beef up tech tools for its network of appraisers, and it is doing so through an acquisition.  The Reno, Nevada-based company just closed on the acquisition of Finnish proptech startup CubiCasa this

The nation’s third largest MLS, with over 70,000 agents in Florida and Puerto Rico, Stellar MLS announced Tuesday that it is partnering with Remine and MoxiWorks to launch a new platform for real estate professionals. Stellar MLS currently offers members

A former executive at loanDepot dropped a bombshell on the mortgage industry late Wednesday, alleging in a lawsuit that the California-based nonbank lender, in a ploy to drum up money during the refi boom and in preparation for its initial

Homeowners with mortgages gained $2.9 trillion in equity in the second quarter of 2021, a 29.3% year-over-year increase, according to a new report by CoreLogic released Wednesday. This marks an average gain of $51,500(!) per borrower since the second quarter

The National Association of Realtors reported existing home sales for August came in at a very tiny beat of estimates at 5,880,000. Now that we are a few days away from October, we can again say that the housing bubble

An Appraisal Subcommittee roundtable discussion about bias in appraisals struck a nerve with attendees of the virtual summit, many of them appraisal professionals. Department of Housing and Urban Development Sec. Marcia Fudge, who headlined the event, gave a short presentation