Loan Think

Last week, the world of mortgage servicing got an unpleasant surprise. Cenlar FSB, the nation’s largest subservicer of residential mortgages, was hit with a consent order by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency alleging “unsafe and unsound” banking practices.

If lenders build this technology, data suggests that borrowers will come walking out of the cornfields for it — but Congress needs to pass the SECURE Act first.

To avoid a crisis similar to in 2008, protection needs to be in place for the mortgage industry. Soon, flood insurance will need to be standard for almost all coastal areas, which will be a considerable cost, writes the CEO of Repair Pricer.

Kind Lending founder Gary Stearns told the National Association of Mortgage Brokers that the wholesale channel always feels the pain first in a slowdown and that changes were coming to the industry after a remarkable run, writes the chairman of Whalen Global Advisors.

Because there are currently no obligations on the sector to file suspicious activity reports — and no penalties associated with not reporting — there is no real incentive to report, writes the vice president of SmartSearch.

If Biden appointees are going to apply more antitrust scrutiny to bank mergers, they need to factor into their analysis the competitive threat that banks face from fintechs and other less-regulated players.

While the Biden Administration has issued a series of measures to encourage the production of more affordable housing, municipalities must changing their zoning or other restrictive laws to facilitate additional development, writes the Chairman and CEO of Walker & Dunlop

Congress says one thing — we want to help these families with modest wealth just starting out — but then does the opposite, time and time again, writes the principal at TVDC.

The targets set by the rule pitched last month would be reduced from recent performance levels for non-minority low-income census tracts, reducing the incentive for the GSEs to purchase mortgages for families in these areas, writes a former principal economist from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The biggest issues facing the mortgage industry involve public policy and all of them feature a political narrative that is ill-informed and largely at odds with market realities, Whalen writes.