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After volumes peaked at their highest in over a decade in March, the reverse mortgage market ended the year with a bankruptcy and merger involving its largest companies.

Nahal Heydari is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at St. John's University.

To monitor the health of lenders still operating, industry watchers should observe firms' abilities to meet covenant requirements, renew warehouse lines of credits and their activity in the mortgage servicing rights market, said Brian Brown, chief financial officer at Rocket Companies.

The government agency is also allowing the use of certain alternative audit procedures to continue.

Matthew Franks is head of High Net Worth Credit at RBC Wealth Management — US. Before joining RBC, he held various leadership roles in the high net worth division of Morgan Stanley's Private Bank from, most recently as a managing director and head of the ultrahigh net worth sales team.

Updates will become effective on May 1 and a uniform mortgage-backed securities fee reduction will begin on April 1.

The Texas bank will let customers go through the entire process on their phones, at the same time that it emphasizes human service that is not impacted by commissions.

Generally positive news about the U.S. economy helped push rates lower, but worries about Congressional infighting over the debt ceiling could reverse the trend, Freddie Mac and Zillow said.

But lower mortgage rates and better traffic have made homebuilders a bit more optimistic, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

George L. Salis is principal economist and tax policy advisor at Vertex. He is an economist, lawyer and tax professional with several years of experience in international taxation and trade compliance, tax planning and controversy, fiscal regulation and tax economics consulting. He is responsible for analysis of economic, legal, financial, trade and development issues in countries, as well as tracking and analyzing the rapid change in tax policies and regulations, and intergovernmental organizations and tax administrations around the world.