Housing Wire

OCTOBER 21, 2020

The housing market faced a lot of uncertainty when COVID-19 caused the real estate industry to pause under shut-downs, but low interest rates and the desire for more space has turned this year into a boom time for real estate agents. “It’s been a circus, really,” said Anthony Lamacchia, Realtor and owner of Lamacchia Realty in the Boston suburbs. “Anything right outside of Boston is going like wildfire, but especially the single-family homes.” Even though the averag

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Simonson Real Estate

OCTOBER 23, 2020

As the impact of COVID continues to unfold and the real estate market grapples with rapidly changing information and market conditions – commercial appraisers have had to quickly adapt to a new way of gathering reliable and credible data to base their appraisal analysis from. At Simonson Appraisals, we have found great importance in real-time property-specific conversations to keep the available data ‘fresh’ and accurate.

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McKissock

OCTOBER 20, 2020

Looking for a career that doesn’t necessarily require a college degree? Consider becoming a real estate appraiser. Before you jump in, you probably have questions like, “What education and training are required?” and “Do you need a college degree to get licensed?” and “How much money can you make as an appraiser?” In this post, we provide answers to these questions and more.

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Aspen Appraisal Group

OCTOBER 23, 2020

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to do a land appraisal on a haunted forest? Have you ever tried to determine the value for 19th Century Victorian mansion that is also most likely very haunted? We wondered too! So we sent Appraiser, Andrew Crandall to American Fork to take a look at the acclaimed and very spooky Haunted Forest. In this video, you’ll see some of the things we look for when conducting an appraisal.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 19, 2020

The U.S. forbearance rate measuring the share of mortgages with suspended payments fell to 5.92% last week, the lowest since mid-April, according to the Mortgage Banker Association. The rate dropped from 6.32% in the prior week, MBA said in a report on Monday. The decline was largely led by portfolio loans and private-label securities as their share of mortgages in forbearance fell to 8.86% from 10.06% the week prior.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 21, 2020

Major forbearance policy changes have been set into motion. The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on Tuesday an extension allowing single-family homeowners with Federal Housing Administration -insured mortgages to request an initial forbearance through Dec 31, 2020. Homeowners with FHA-insured mortgages that needed assistance due to financial hardship from the pandemic initially had through Oct. 30 to request forbearance.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 22, 2020

The average U.S. mortgage rate for a 30-year fixed loan fell to 2.8% this week, another record low, Freddie Mac said in a report on Thursday. The rate fell one basis points from the week prior and is now six basis points lower than the original all-time low set in mid-September. The average fixed rate for a 15-year mortgage was 2.33%, falling from last week’s 2.35%.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 23, 2020

In the third quarter, luxury home sales jumped 41.5% , the biggest year-over-year shift since 2013, according to Redfin. And while real estate agents repping luxury homes aren’t seeing as many bidding wars as they did this summer , their respective housing markets are still crazy right now. “What we’re seeing here in Palm Beach is a total frenzy,” Dana Koch, a sales associate with Corcoran Group , the Koch Team in Palm Beach, told HousingWire.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 22, 2020

Sales of existing homes took off in September, jumping 9.4% from August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.54 million, the National Association of Realtors said in a report on Thursday. Compared to a year ago, sales are up 20.9%. “Home sales traditionally taper off toward the end of the year, but in September they surged beyond what we normally see during this season,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 20, 2020

The leaders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sat down with Mortgage Bankers Association Chair-elect Kristy Fercho on Tuesday at the MBA Annual conference to discuss how the GSEs have managed the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis. Freddie Mac’s David Brickman and Fannie Mae’s Hugh Frater also offered their takes on challenges with affordable housing, racial disparities with homeownership, expectations for 2021 and – yes, you knew it was coming – the 50 bps adverse market fee that’s due to hit lenders do

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 23, 2020

Just before its stock debuted at a disappointing $15 a share, Guild Mortgage settled a federal lawsuit that claimed the lender knowingly breached legal requirements when it originated and underwrote FHA loans. Guild agreed to settle the federal lawsuit, brought by the Department of Justice , for just under $25 million, the government said Thursday. It did not admit to any wrongdoing.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 20, 2020

Single-family housing starts soared in September, a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows, despite an overall rate that was dragged down by a decline in multifamily starts. Privately owned housing starts in September rose to an annual rate of 1.415 million, 1.9% above the revised August estimate of 1.388 million and 11.1% above the September 2019 rate of 1.274 million, the Bureau said.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 21, 2020

Lender and servicer AmeriHome on Wednesday laid out the terms of its upcoming initial public offering. The company plans to raise roughly $250 million by offering over 14.7 million Class A shares priced between $16 and $18, according to the amended S-1. AmeriHome on Wednesday also revealed that mortgage investor Bayview Asset Management is prepared to purchase $50 million worth of shares in the offering, expected to price next week.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 22, 2020

The MBA ’s economic research team of Dr. Michael Fratantoni and his staff made national news at the MBA’s annual virtual convention, releasing a projection for 2020 of $3.18 trillion, the second-largest origination year in U.S. history next to 2003. It’s worth looking inside the numbers though as we head toward year-end and think about 2021 strategies.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 19, 2020

The National Association of Realtors has launched a new ad campaign , an extension of its “That’s Who We R” effort, working with creative advertising agency Havas Chicago to create an omnichannel campaign to drive awareness of fair housing issues. NAR said, “this ad won’t end discrimination in real estate. People will,” and recommends that its members and the public report fair housing violations to HUD.gov.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 23, 2020

HousingWire recently spoke with Verse founder and CEO David Tal about the lead conversion gap and how Verse is helping lenders engage and nurture leads. HousingWire: What’s causing the gap between sales and marketing? David Tal: The massive gap between sales and marketing is caused by a number of factors and challenges faced by marketing and sales teams, and the difficulty for either of them to solve it.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 21, 2020

For the second week in a row, mortgage applications faltered slightly, falling 0.6% from the week prior, according to a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Purchase applications also took a hit last week, falling 2% from the week prior, however, remained 26% higher than this same time last year. Joel Kan, MBA’s vice president of economic and industry forecasting, pointed to a rise in mortgage rates last week for why conventional and government purchase activity took a step back.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 20, 2020

Knock Home Swap has expanded into Orlando, Florida and Tampa, Florida, its first markets in the Sunshine State. Home Swap is offered exclusively through local real estate professionals who have been trained as Knock Certified Agents. In these markets Home Swap will be offered through Keller Williams Realty of Central Florida , Keller Williams LeHeup Group and Keller Williams Suburban Tampa – The Chadwick Group.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 23, 2020

The Federal Housing Administration announced on Wednesday the launch of its first automated underwriting system that will allow lenders to submit loan application data electronically for single family forward mortgages from their loan origination systems to FHA for mortgage insurance eligibility. The AUS is built upon FHA’s Catalyst technology platform – a modernization initiative the company says will build trust through “reliable and accurate data, facilitating modern systems for the FHA progr

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 21, 2020

As the mortgage industry moves toward increasing adoption of remote online notarization, a panel of experts at the Mortgage Bankers Association Annual conference said uniformity will be key. Speaking at the session titled “Strategy & Technology Track: COVID Hit. Social Distancing Followed. Is RON the Solution?,” panelists discussed the future of RON, and what must happen to see further adoption.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 19, 2020

Credit reporting agency TransUnion announced on Monday that it was making an equity investment in FinLocker ’s $20 million Series A round, inking a partnership agreement designed to give consumers more control and access to their credit data while letting lenders and servicers leverage FinLocker for lead nurturing and conversion. With the partnership, TransUnion will provide credit report information to FinLocker and provide updated credit and consumer information through its lead generation and

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 20, 2020

From the beginning, co-founder and CEO John Paasonen has been clear about digital mortgage platform Maxwell’s mission: to make mortgages simpler and more accessible. Since channeling his frustrations with the mortgage borrowing process into co-founding Maxwell in 2015, Paasonen has been busy honing a technology-powered platform meant to delight borrowers with a streamlined experience for lenders.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 21, 2020

At its Annual event Wednesday, Mortgage Bankers Association Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni forecast that interest rates could rise in the year to come, but that they will remain near all-time lows. Fratantoni pointed out that the job losses seen in 2020 have been unprecedented, even when compared to the Great Recession. “Yes, it’s come down to 10 million, but look at how that compares again to the peak in 2009 of 6.6 million,” he said.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 23, 2020

Kicking off people movers for the week, Opendoor announced it hired a new chief investment officer, naming Daniel Morillo to lead the iBuyer’s pricing and data science efforts. As chief investment officer, Morillo will oversee the strategy and development of the company’s pricing capabilities, as well as its data science initiative, tapping into his experience in risk, modeling and asset management at some of the world’s biggest investment companies to help grow Opendoor.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 21, 2020

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau appears to have lost an opportunity to correct a nagging issue in its definition of a qualified mortgage. The current rule provides safe harbor protection to lenders from potential litigation brought by borrowers for loans having debt-to-income ratios of 43% or less. A proposal in June by the CFPB to replace the 43% DTI limit with a rate-based definition of a qualified mortgage still misses the mark by a country mile.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 19, 2020

The National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo Housing Market Index rose two points to 85 in October – the highest score the series has ever recorded since its inception 35 years ago and the second month in its history the score broke 80. Based on a scale from zero to 100, the index gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the coming six months.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 22, 2020

The number of seriously delinquent mortgages fell by 43,000 in September – the first drop in mortgages 90-days past due since the beginning of the pandemic, Black Knight said in a report on Thursday. According to the report, more than 2.3 million homeowners – five times the number at the beginning of 2020 – remain 90 or more days past due, but are not in foreclosure.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 21, 2020

Lone Star Funds ‘ residential mortgage lender Caliber Home Loans hopes to raise up to $538 million at its highly anticipated public debut next week, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchanges Commission on Wednesday. Caliber , based in Coppell, Texas, plans to raise upwards of $423 million by selling over 26.4 million Class A sales, plus $115 million in preferred stock, according to the amended S-1.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 21, 2020

Over the years, the inventory of affordable homes has been in sharp decline, while home prices have risen dramatically. With housing becoming increasingly unaffordable, the shortage of safe and affordable homes is affecting more and more prospective homebuyers every day. However, potential impacts go beyond individual would-be homeowners, with growing implications for society at large.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 20, 2020

At a session during the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Annual event , Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger announced the extension of the Qualified Mortgage Patch until a new QM Patch is decided on. “To make it clear to the market that we are going to have a smooth transition to the new QM, the patch will be available until the mandatory compliance date for the new QM,” Kraninger said.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 19, 2020

CoreLogic’s Total Home ValueX, or THVX, is a revolutionary AVM that leverages AI and machine learning. CoreLogic built THVX on cloud technology, and it uses a single-model methodology that’s configured to meet different business needs. While traditional AVM models assume average condition and quality of a property, CoreLogic built THVX using a wide range of model inputs that better differentiate specific site characteristics and property conditions.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 19, 2020

Investment guidance and financial wellness resources are now available to all 1.4 million members of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) , through a partnership with Morgan Stanley. According to NAR, this guidance will be uniquely designed to fit the needs of individual Realtors. The tools include the support of a dedicated Morgan Stanley financial advisor for college savings, retirement and estate planning.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 23, 2020

Stone Point Capital has purchased Vista Equity Partners’ stake in real estate software company Lone Wolf Technologies. Stone Point will become Lone Wolf’s lead institutional investor, powering the next phase of its growth and expanding its product offering, the company said. The investment by Stone Point, a financial services-focused private equity firm, will help Lone Wolf streamline its end-to-end experience for agents and brokers and accelerate organic and inorganic product develo

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 22, 2020

Stewart Appraisal Management , a subsidiary of Stewart Information Services Corp., announced on Thursday it acquired valuation services company Pro Teck Valuation Intelligence. Stewart is looking to strengthen and expand its scale in the appraisal and valuation solutions space. With more than 40 years of residential real estate experience, Pro Teck provides property valuation services and recently released its technology Valuation Intelligence, a cloud-based fulfillment platform that provides re

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