Kate Berry has covered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for American Banker since 2016. She joined the publication in 2006 covering mortgage lending and the financial crisis. Berry also has covered big banks including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. She has won five awards from the Society of American Business Writers and Editors, and has worked at several news organizations including the Orange County Register, the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Associated Press. Berry began her career as a clerk at the New York Times.
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After it all but stopped making real estate and development loans following the housing crash, Farmers & Merchants Bank has increased its real estate loans by more than 61% over the last two years. It's a figure thats likely to keep rising as California's real estate market heats up and the $5.6 billion-asset bank continues to add commercial real estate, construction and mortgage lending specialists to keep pace.
July 1 -
Many lenders may not have been ready for the CFPB's new mortgage disclosure rule if it took effect on Aug. 1 as planned. Now a slip-up by the agency itself has given lenders a two-month reprieve.
June 22 -
Pressure from community groups forced Valley National Bancorp to strengthen its commitment to lend in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods in order to win approval for a Florida acquisition. Other banks, too, are now placing CRA efforts front-and-center as they aim to sell deals to the public and their regulators.
June 19 -
The mortgage lender Nationstar Mortgage Holdings is pouring a lot of energy into a digital and mobile homebuying platform called Xome. The strategy could attract tech-savvy millennials but carries plenty of risks including whether consumers would be improperly steered to its products.
June 10 -
The Louisiana Real Estate Appraisers Board said Coester Appraisal Management Group did not violate state law for failing to pay appraisers "customary and reasonable" fees, and that its executive director "misspoke" about a stipulation and order with the AMC.
June 8 -
The Louisiana Real Estate Appraisers Board has fined an appraisal management company $5,000 for failing to pay "customary and reasonable" fees to appraisers.
June 5 -
Ocwen Financial's shares had fallen nearly 7% Friday afternoon, to under $10 apiece, a day after Standard & Poor's Ratings Services put the company's servicer ratings on CreditWatch negative.
June 5 -
Mortgage lenders are in the final stretch of preparing to deliver the new TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures to borrowers. But it's not just the change of forms that's causing alarm bells. Fines could be steep and legal liability could be even higher for violators, while necessary technology changes are expensive.
June 1 -
With older appraisers retiring and fewer and fewer college graduates entering the profession, industry observers say that, in five to 10 years, there won't be enough appraisers to handle the volume of home sales. For lenders, that could mean higher appraisal fees and long delays in closing loans at a time when technology could be speeding up the process.
May 20 -
The Federal Housing Finance Agency provided more details Friday about key features for the new single security that will be issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
May 15 -
With support from Bank of America, a nonprofit lender is trying to revitalize Detroit by offering no-down-payment mortgages at up to 150% of a home's assessed value. The idea is to provide borrowers with enough cash to buy run-down homes and fix them up, and if the program works as promised it could prove to be a template for lending in other cities like Baltimore that have large swaths of boarded-up homes.
May 13 -
A lot of bankers want on-balance-sheet mortgages declared ultrasafe under federal rules, and Wells Fargo executive Brad Blackwell explains why he thinks it's in their self-interest more than ever to live up to their arguments in favor of such a policy.
May 11 -
Ocwen Financial failed a test to determine whether it had notified borrowers of missing or incomplete documents for loan modifications in a timely manner, according to the national mortgage settlement monitor.
May 7 -
Banks want all loans held in portfolio to be classified as ultrasafe regardless of the underwriting characteristics or of a bank's asset size. But consumer activists and independent mortgage lenders are raising red flags ahead of possible Senate Banking action.
May 1 -
Ocwen Financial's shares jumped 19% to more than $10 a share as of late morning Friday, the day after it reported a first-quarter profit and highlighted an expansion into mortgage lending.
May 1 -
The troubled Atlanta mortgage servicer's independent auditor has again delayed its 2014 financial results and has raised questions about the firm's viability, CEO Ron Faris said after Ocwen reported a steep earnings drop.
April 30 -
With low rates tempting more home owners to refinance and relaxed down payment requirements spurring more home sales, bankers are more optimistic about mortgage lending than they have been in some time.
April 27 -
As banks have largely ceded the market for government-backed loans to nonbank lenders and servicers, it's fallen on Ginnie Mae to be sure that these nonbanks can meet their obligations to bondholders. It's a huge concern for President Ted Tozer, who says the company does not have the resources or manpower to examine these firms' finances.
April 22 -
Independent lenders rebut suggestions that they pose a greater risk to FHA (and hence taxpayers) than the large banks.
April 8 -
The shift in market composition is fueling concerns that if defaults rise, the Federal Housing Administration would have a harder time making lenders eat the losses on poorly underwritten loans.
April 6
