Digital mortgages

Only a fraction of mortgage borrowers return to their servicers to originate or refinance a mortgage loan, and it may be the industry's fault for not exhausting enough effort to keep them around.

Fewer mortgage borrowers are falling behind on their payments, and consumers' broader borrowing habits indicate an increased willingness to turn to nontraditional sources like fintechs for their lending needs, according to TransUnion.

With its latest round of funding, the mortgage fintech company will continue to build its digital platform, with a goal of reducing the complexities and costs of home buying.

The company will shutter the offices it inherited when it bought EverBank in 2017 and focus on lending to existing customers through digital channels. U.S. Bank will assume the leases on about 25 properties.

Through digital validation and intelligent data automation, borrowers will know if their loan would be approved in as little as seven minutes and be able to close in eight days, according to loanDepot.

A digital mortgage startup called Brace is using machine learning to automate loss mitigation and has lined up backing from several venture capital sources, including a fund with high-profile investors like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

With a growing market share of home sales and wider breadth of services, Redfin posted significant annual revenue gains.

The private equity acquisition of the fintech vendor Ellie Mae will give it some breathing room in a declining originations market because it will have a more patient and strategic investor than its myriad shareholders as a public company.

Black Knight reported lower net earnings, but higher revenue in the fourth quarter compared with the previous year, driven by growth in the company's software segment.

The mortgage loan origination system developer Ellie Mae is going private, agreeing to be acquired by the private equity firm Thoma Bravo in an all-cash transaction valued at $3.7 billion.