It is hard to believe that Halloween is fewer days away than the 4th of July from a few months ago. It is also hard to believe this story/photo of a tarantula being eaten alive fighting its way out of a toad's mouth. Far be it from me to equate that as having anything to do with lenders, regulators, and lawsuits. But the reader from Wisconsin who sent this to me certainly did.

The prices of mortgage-backed securities change every day, as do servicing values. What about structural changes to loan-level price adjustments and other investor-specific prices? Yes, those change as well, and here's a sampling.

U.S. Bank Home Mortgage Rate Sheets will reflect the Freddie Mac Home Possible / Home Possible Advantage (#3687 & #3691) program loan level price adjustments for any new locks taken on or after August 24.

A new adjuster of .250 basis points will be applied to all Non-Conforming cash-out refinance transactions locked on or after August 29 with Wells Fargo. 

Possibly not coincidentally with the paragraph above, effective with loans locked on or after August 29 Mortgage Solutions Financial is adding a loan level price adjuster of +0.250 (for the worse) to all cash out refinance transactions on the 501 Non-Conforming products. MSF also has removed the lock cancellation button from the Optimal Blue pricing engine. Email lock cancellation requests to locks@mortgagesolutions.net.  

ditech spread the word that one can pick their loan term, anywhere from 10-30 years on conforming and 5-30 years on FHA. These options are available for both refinance and purchase transactions.

And the conventional conforming changes just keep coming - from Freddie and Fannie and plenty of lenders and investors.

In case you missed information regarding Fannie Mae's Seller Guide updates in August...The IDR framework is now incorporated into the Selling Guide. The Appeals and Independent Dispute Resolution Processes document on Fannie Mae's website provides additional detail. Nontraditional credit guidelines were enhanced incorporating the upcoming Desktop Underwriter® (DU®) version 10.0 updates. Also enhanced was the manual underwriting guidelines on nontraditional credit borrowers to provide additional opportunities for the income and credit of these borrowers to be considered in qualifying for a loan. Additionally, the requirements for documenting the payment histories for nontraditional credit are now simpler and clearer. The elimination of project-level liability insurance requirements for certain PUDs and condo projects as applicable to new attached PUD projects, and to two- to four-unit condo projects that go through our Full Review process and meet certain requirements. View the Announcement for full details.

Compass Analytics announced its latest CompassPoint 3.5.0.0 release will include bi-directional integration with Fannie Mae's Pricing & Execution - Whole Loan platform. This gives CompassPoint users the ability to connect to the interface and take out mandatory whole loan commitments directly with Fannie Mae, greatly streamlining the commitment and real-time risk management update process. Click here to read more about the benefits of this automated platform, along with other important updates in the 3.5.0.0 release.

Fannie Mae has updated its guidelines for Multiple Financed Properties where borrower is financing a second home or investment property and has additional financed properties. Sun West Mortgage Company is aligning its guidelines for Multiple Financed Properties as per Fannie Mae announcement SEL 2016-03. The revised policy is effective for loan submissions on or after 06/30/2016. The updated guidelines can be accessed through its website.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have announced the newly redesigned Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA) is now posted to their respective URLA web pages, along with a corresponding standardized dataset, the Uniform Loan Application Dataset (ULAD). The redesigned URLA (Fannie Mae Form 1003) will improve the borrower experience while promoting enhanced and consistent data standards throughout the loan manufacturing process. Visit the new URLA pagefor information and important documentation.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will introduce new high loan-to-value (LTV) ratio refinance options, scheduled to be available in October 2017. The new options will be for existing loans with LTV ratios exceeding the maximum otherwise allowed, supporting borrowers who are making their payments but are constrained by a high LTV from refinancing. Under the new options, as with HARP, the refinance must provide a borrower benefit, such as a lower interest rate. Unlike HARP, the new options will not have an effective date or an expiration date. Refer to the Selling Notice for more information on the extension of DU Refi PlusTM and Refi PlusTM. To preview Fannie Mae's new high LTV refinance option.

Interest rates? Still at the same levels we've been in for much of the summer, and the press seems focused on the "mediocre data versus Fed officials talking rate hike" clash. As they say, "Don't fight the Fed." On Friday we lost a little ground "in a curve-steepening trade" as investors slightly reduced their bets on a Fed rate hike in September following the release of the August jobs report. The August number missed estimates by 20k, but July was revised higher by...20k. Go figure. Right after the number the 10-year yield went as low as 1.54% before grinding higher for the rest of the day and closing at 1.61%. Price-wise it sank .375 while the 5-year T-note dropped 1/8 in price as did, roughly, current coupon agency MBS prices.

That was so...last week. Yes, its Tuesday already, and we don't have much economic news scheduled. And it seems pretty quiet overseas, bond market-wise, although a handful of central banks are meeting this week. Today we'll have something called the "Labor Market Conditions Index Change," the "Markit US Services PMI," and a couple other of little importance. Tomorrow is the MBA's application data so lenders can compare their numbers off of everyone else's figures. We also have a JOLTS job opening number and the Fed releasing its Beige Book. Thursday is Initial Jobless Claims. Friday...drumroll... Wholesale Inventories for July.

LOs trying to guess where rate sheets are going to come out...well, it depends if your head of capital markets adjusted prices during the day on Friday. We're pretty much unchanged from Friday's close on agency MBS prices as is the 10-year T-note at 1.60%.


In eMortgage news, mortgage document preparation vendor International Document Services (IDS), a division of The Reynolds and Reynolds Company, announced its acquisition of Encomia, an established provider of electronic mortgage (eMortgage) solutions to depository and non-depository lending institutions. Encomia's eClosing platform is designed to streamline electronic loan applications and closings. The platform and software tools, which are used by major mortgage lenders, also provide for secure electronic document storage (eVault), eSignature capture and eValidation, as well as asset and income verification services.

World Wide Notary and NotaryGO have partnered to facilitate nationwide eNotarization Adoption. The new partnership will provide NotaryGO's more than 71,000 notaries, title notary attorneys, and mobile notaries with access to WWN and its partners' technology. These notaries will have access to WWN's DigaSign eClosing system and the capability to service eMortgage lenders and title with fully eMortgage closings in their specific cities and states. "The DigaSign solution allows borrowers, lenders, settlement agents and mobile notaries to eSign documents and eNotarize - both online and offline."

Mid America Mortgage announced it will purchase eNotes for loans closed electronically from approved sellers through its correspondent lending channel. One of the traditional barriers to eClosing has been a perceived lack of acceptance from investors and warehouse banks. To counter this, Mid America has established relationships with several eWarehouse bank providers, including FirstFunding and Merchants Bank of Indiana, to give participating lenders added confidence that eClosed loans will be purchasable. While participating lenders can utilize any eClosing/eNote vendor, Mid America's list of preferred vendors include: Digital Delivery eSign, Doc Magic, IDS and Pavaso. For more information, contact Mid America's Director of Correspondent Lending Kara Lamphere.


Jobs and Announcements

Pondered your current position over the long holiday weekend and ready to take the next step? Due to expansion Stonegate Mortgage is currently seeking an experienced operations leader for its Vice President of Third Party Operations. The right candidate will lead an existing, talented management team based in Lake Forest, California. Stonegate Mortgage has long been committed to making the dream of homeownership a reality and providing its associates the resources they need to succeed. To learn more about Stonegate Mortgage visit www.stonegatemtg.com Qualified candidates should email their resumes or confidential inquiries to Lindsay Urschel.

And a national mortgage lender is looking for a Branch Retail Production Manager to lead an existing retail, realtor-based $200M per year ($17M per month) team in the Seattle / Bellevue, Washington markets whose role will be to lead and support existing loan officers and act as a conduit between sales and ops/fulfillment. Compensation is a base plus override on existing production plus growth bonuses. The ideal candidate will have a $3-$5M/month branch to possibly merge with existing retail team to make one large fulfillment platform. There are strong growth goals for the Seattle market to reach $1B in 2017. Interested candidates, please respond to me with inquiries. (Please excuse travel-related delays.)

There's a slew of upcoming events, free and otherwise, of interest, and some are very useful despite being a little off the beaten path...

For those hiring here's your last chance to register: XINNIX, the Mortgage Academy is hosting a [Leadership Webinar] You're Invited: 5 Steps to Building Your New Sales Force event hosted by Casey Cunningham, on September 7th from 2-3PM ET. "With so many new professionals entering the mortgage industry, there has never been a better time to acquire new talent for your organization! Join Casey Cunningham, founder and CEO of XINNIX, The Mortgage Academy, as she shares valuable insights and practices to help you find, recruit and assimilate new Loan Officers to build your best sales team yet. Find 5 simple sourcing ideas for finding new LOs, tactics for screening, assessing and interviewing candidates, and insights to help you train and assimilate your new LOs.

Mortgage Coach, ranked the #1 Mortgage app by USA TODAY, is launching several partnerships in September. To kick off the month, they are hosting a live webinar tomorrow with NY Times Best Selling Author Darren Hardy. "They believe every mortgage professional has the opportunity to have the greatest job in the world. They just need to be a trusted leader with their clients and an effective leader with their team. So don't miss this special opportunity to learn about 21st Century Leadership from Darren and Dave tomorrow, September 7th, 1PM ET/10AM PT.

Don't miss out on the NMMLA September 8th luncheon. The guest speaker is a representative from the FBI who will present resent recent case studies of fraud in the lending industry.

"Are you looking to increase your mortgage production, propel your income, expand your referral partner network and start playing at a higher level? Break free from what's holding you back by registering today for Cindy Ertman's Mortgage Mastermind Elite Program (MME) where High Performance Mortgage Professionals come together to share best practices and accelerate their results. For over a decade, Cindy achieved her goal of seven-figure success as one of the top producing mortgage professionals throughout the country, while training and coaching other mortgage professionals to do the same. As one of 'The Top 100 Most Influential Mortgage Executives in America' by Mortgage Executive Magazine, three years in a row.

Cindy is now dedicated to empowering the growth of others through her MME program, as well as her private success coaching programs. Learn More Today - seats are limited."

During the month of September, Plaza Mortgage is offering a host of webinars. September 7th: Reverse Mortgage Basics. September 8th: 3 Things to Know About 3% Down Loans. September 12th: Condo Appraisals, understanding and reviewing. September 13th: Common Schemes in Mortgage Fraud. September 19th: Build Business by Building Yourself. September 21st: HomeStyle.

"Are you stoked for the next Mortgage Girlfriends Retreat?  On September 22nd and 23rd, Karen Deis is holding her 9th annual Retreat titled "Closing More Deals, Wearing High Heels: Creating a Brand Called You!"

Don't miss MBA's Stress Testing for Mid-Size Banks Workshop on October 12th in Reston, VA. Learn how to build and improve your stress-testing framework -- directly from regulators, banking colleagues and other industry experts -- at this one-day workshop.

The California Mortgage Association's Fall Seminar in Las Vegas, October 27 - 28, 2016 is a great venue for Private Money lenders and brokers to learn and network. The seminar will cover topics including; Making Multiple Loans to the Same Borrower, Keys to a Successful Marketing Program, Construction Lending, as well as an industry Legal and Regulatory Review and more.