Loan Think

RealtyTrac released its May U.S. Foreclosure report, which emphasized the first year-over-year increase in foreclosure starts in 28 months. What does this mean?

These days, many lenders’ licensing and legal departments are larger than what they were budgeted for, and adding efficiency without adding head count to the back office must be a priority.

Housing markets are showing credible signs of a revival that still is “in the early innings,” according to the State of the Nation’s Housing 2012 report released by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

To hear some nonbank lenders talk about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau you would think they were dealing with Dracula or something.

One thing you can always count on from Washington—there will be plenty of regulatory activity after a crisis happens rather than before when it might be useful.

Regardless of your position on the use of MERS as a nominee for the lender, creating a shared, accessible database of record is another reason why lenders and servicers have worked diligently to certify the accuracy of the data entered in the MERS database.

Costco has started to offer mortgages through approved lenders and heavily marketing the program to its 68 million members.

If CFPB is successful in killing nonbank brokers who’s to say the agency won’t go after nonbank servicers next? That would mean all those REITs buying MSRs might be in danger.

It hasn’t been a good week for the loan brokerage community. On Monday Raj Date, the number two man at the CFPB, in a speech to the American Bankers Association blamed mortgage brokers (more or less) for the housing bust.

The consensus is that short sales are better than foreclosures for many reasons.