Loan Think

If the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau provides lenders with a hold harmless period, it must also include protections to keep lenders from facing future lawsuits related to TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures compliance.

To better serve millennial mortgage customers, lenders would be helped by understanding how the "fear of missing out" mentality drives this generation's consumer culture.

The key to housing finance reform is a new securitization model that allows the private sector to price and absorb the majority of housing credit risk.

Appraisers and appraisal management companies do important, and different, work. Their fees should be listed separately and transparently in the TILA-RESPA integrated disclosures.

A Fair Housing Act lawsuit allowed to stand against a lender degrees removed from the alleged injury is one example of how broadly defined discrimination laws will open an abyss of litigation.

Lenders should be excited about the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures because it will help them provide better customer service and new opportunities to engage and educate borrowers.

Servicers should make some simple requests of their tech vendors to tailor compliance systems to their needs and avoid the headaches of overhauling compliance systems.

There is no universal definition of "TRID-ready," but any vendor claiming it's prepared for the new integrated disclosures should allow lenders to test the changes. Here's what to look for, and the red flags that should be cause for concern.

Natural disasters and hidden property defects are about all lenders can count on to constitute a "changed circumstance" delay on the Loan Estimate — but prepare for a case-by-case evaluation, anyway.

A unique public-private program in Dane County, Wis., uses shared-appreciation mortgages to develop new affordable housing units more effectively than other traditional financing options.