Tue, Dec 20 2016, 11:32 AM
Back in July, President Obama signed HR3700 The Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act of 2016. The law makes a number of changes in existing h...
Mon, Dec 19 2016, 9:07 AM
The cold temperatures sweeping the nation, especially in the Upper Plains, have plenty of folks wondering how Native Americans kept warm during the wi...
Tue, Dec 6 2016, 9:27 AM
Many years ago, it was a joke in Britain to say that, “the War Office was always preparing for the last war.” To their credit, regulators now often tr...
Fri, Dec 2 2016, 9:27 AM
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has now joined the Federal Housing Finance Agency in raising the dollar limits for loans that qualify for FHA...
Fri, Dec 2 2016, 9:24 AM
Plenty of people are on the roads in December, traveling for the holidays. Ever curious about the basic differences between a road, a street, a boulev...
Tue, Nov 22 2016, 9:53 AM
Another day, another settlement. Ally Financial Inc said it agreed to pay $52 million to settle claims made by the U.S. Department of Justice against ...
Wed, Nov 16 2016, 10:55 AM
Baby Boomers like lists and rankings. Here is one that I ran across: the 50 highest paying professions not needing a college degree. There are a coupl...
Tue, Nov 15 2016, 10:43 AM
For me this week and last includes time in Knoxville, Las Vegas, Portland, Northern California, Colorado, and Salt Lake City. The mood? Besides plenty...
Wed, Nov 2 2016, 10:14 AM
It's a global mortgage market, and this news tidbit caught my eye - reminding us that "a rising tide floats all boats." Virgin Money's Q3 IMS shows co...
Wed, Oct 26 2016, 9:42 AM
It is well documented that “women spend more time wondering what men are thinking than men spend thinking.” Lemon Drops move over! (For those of you w...
Thu, Oct 20 2016, 10:13 AM
Flying to Boston for the MBA’s conference? Here’s a view you won't see. But probably a more important question is, "Is your cyber secure?" The FFIEC j...
Wed, Sep 28 2016, 9:30 AM
What do attorneys and judges think of compliance? Here's a nice write up , but it is important that incentives match your company's compliance goals, ...
Fri, Sep 16 2016, 9:52 AM
In last month's Housing Finance Chartbook the Urban Institute showed how a recent surge in issuance of private mortgage insurance (PMI) had come at th...
Fri, Sep 16 2016, 9:47 AM
Free data is available on nearly 95% of mortgage originations nationwide thanks to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). While the raw data is avai...
Tue, Aug 30 2016, 9:57 AM
I asked my cat Myrtle for her comments on the proposed TRID changes. (Blank stare.“Myrtle, make up your mind – in or out!”) I did, however, receive th...
Fri, Aug 26 2016, 9:08 AM
Among the charts and tests summarizing most of the housing finance news that emerged during July, the latest issue of the Urban Institute's (UI's) Hou...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 9:13 AM
The capital markets are always changing, and the latest news to turn some heads is that JPMorgan Chase is streamlining its operations and will no lon...
Wed, Jul 20 2016, 10:22 AM
Remember when someone was "fired" instead of "managed out?" Then there's a good old-fashioned purge like what Turkish President Erdogan did yesterday ...
Mon, Jul 18 2016, 10:45 AM
Rates have crept back up to pre-Brexit levels. Will the rates borrowers locked in during the last week of June be the stuff of cocktail party bragging...
Tue, Jul 5 2016, 10:13 AM
Last week we noticed that Ginnie Mae volumes had passed Freddie Mac , so the absence of big banks doing that business was certainly taken up by non...
Fri, Jul 1 2016, 11:28 AM
Investors who purchase distressed loans through the FHA's Distressed Asset Stabilization Program (DASP) are going to have to toe a stricter line w...
Mon, Jun 20 2016, 10:40 AM
To start off the week, besides the first full moon on a summer solstice since 1967, here’s an interesting Bloomberg chart about the Federal governme...
Tue, May 31 2016, 10:17 AM
Research by the EBRI on retirement finds while 67% of workers plan to work for pay in retirement, only 27% of retirees do so. Of the retirees who work...
Wed, May 18 2016, 7:56 AM
Here in New York the airplanes will be filled with capital markets staff and CEOs heading home from the MBA’s conference. More observations tomorrow.....
Wed, Apr 27 2016, 9:49 AM
The “Tiny Home” movement is interesting, but 84 square feet ? That is enough to store my Hot Wheels, Match Box, and slot car collections. Am I thinki...
Mon, Apr 11 2016, 10:46 AM
Reuters is reporting that Wells Fargo & Co has agreed to pay a record $1.2 billion to resolve a dispute with the Justice Department over mortgages i...
Mon, Apr 11 2016, 9:54 AM
Last week I was in Coeur d’Alene (for Banner Bank’s sales staff celebrating a great 2015) and I was reminded that tomorrow is “Free Cone Day” at Ben &...
Tue, Mar 22 2016, 10:05 AM
A major conversation topic is how lenders must adhere to a new certification when making a Federal Housing Administration-backed mortgage. The FHA u...
Thu, Mar 17 2016, 10:40 AM
The FHA has released new loan-level and annual lender-level certifications which it said it expects will provide better clarity to lenders about FHA...
Wed, Feb 17 2016, 11:02 AM
To put some perspective on things, a trillion seconds is roughly 31,710 years. The Fed indicates that household housing debt is about $8.8 trillion ...
Fri, Feb 12 2016, 11:37 AM
In a hearing on Thursday before the House
Financial Services Committee, Edward L. Golding,
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of...
Mon, Feb 1 2016, 8:34 AM
February
already? Ah, Valentine's Day - remember as a kid when your classmates
would hand out a 5 word card to every classmate and you received 20...
Tue, Jan 5 2016, 11:03 AM
For
anyone who likes numbers, the U.S. Census Bureau projected the United
States population was 322,762,018 on Jan. 1. This is an increase of
2,...
Thu, Dec 10 2015, 10:55 AM
Someone
is always upset when they are left off of some list, but Owners.com, a
national brokerage, has published the top 25 metro areas by home pr...
Mon, Dec 7 2015, 10:53 AM
The government sponsored enterprises'' (GSE's)
introduction of 97 percent loan-to-value (LTV) mortgages, implemented by Fannie
Mae' in late 2014 and...
Tue, Nov 17 2015, 10:10 AM
I
do a little traveling (this week, hopefully, is California, Colorado,
and Kansas) so it was interesting to see that Pro Teck Valuation
Service...
Mon, Nov 16 2015, 3:48 PM
FHA's Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMIF) is back in the
money . Housing and Urban Development
Secretary Julian Castro told Congress today that ...
Tue, Nov 3 2015, 10:46 AM
Are
we heading for a "Pearl Harbor" type event in the internet? Possibly,
and cyber security is certainly becoming critical . And it just isn't
...
Fri, Oct 23 2015, 10:44 AM
There are reasons why FHA production has skyrocketed in the last year, and why that product was the talk of the MBA conference. It
seems that fina...
Mon, Sep 28 2015, 9:27 AM
For something relevant to real estate agents, LOs, and travelers, the U.S. Census Bureau has updated its World Population Clock
to include country...
Mon, Sep 21 2015, 10:01 AM
We've
only just begun... Excellus BlueCross BlueShield reports cyber attackers
have hacked its systems and that 10 million people have been affec...
Fri, Sep 18 2015, 10:58 AM
"Recent
global economic and financial developments may restrain economic
activity somewhat and are likely to put further downward pressure on
in...
Wed, Sep 9 2015, 4:59 PM
The changes to FHA loan qualification
criteria, originally scheduled for implementation in June, will instead
be implemented on the 15 th of this...
Thu, Sep 3 2015, 11:39 AM
“Papa
was a rolling stone. And all he left us was a loan, loan, loan..."
Liberties with the Temptations lyrics aside, it has been 43 years ago
t...
Fri, Aug 28 2015, 12:14 PM
I, being a capital markets guy, was very interested in the MBA sending a comment letter
to the Basel Committee on its proposal, " Interest Rate Ri...
Wed, Aug 26 2015, 9:01 AM
There was virtually no
movement last week in the various indices measuring mortgage application
volume. The Mortgage Bankers Association's
(MBA's)...
Tue, Aug 25 2015, 2:52 PM
There is nothing like some bond market volatility to drive up hedge costs and push down secondary marketing results, right?
Capital markets depart...
Tue, Aug 18 2015, 10:34 AM
Under
the "fun with numbers" category, several readers wrote in yesterday
regarding the CFPB's semi-annual numbers: "The report noted that during ...
Tue, Jul 21 2015, 10:30 AM
"Rob, I find it very interesting that the FHFA reported that the Agencies have selected smaller and less financially stable companies to receive lower...
Thu, Jul 16 2015, 9:53 AM
Earnest Hemingway was born in the comfortable Midwestern suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, a place he described as full of, "wide lawns and narrow minds."...
