Loan Think

Just because the Fed is staying put doesn’t mean that mortgage rates, and prices of MBS, are staying put as well, writes Vice Capital Markets Principal Chris Bennett.

“Two clicks or less” needs to become the mantra for the mortgage industry as it confronts the digital challenges that have kept it mired in the world of costly and cumbersome phone-based customer support, J.D. Power’s Jim Houston writes.

Both in terms of interest expense and the sheer cost of dealing with consumers, the mortgage industry is out hundreds of millions of dollars due to this unfunded mandate from Congress, analyst Chris Whalen says.

The reduction currently under consideration by the Biden Administration would lead to even faster home price appreciation, especially in areas with moderate FHA presence, American Enterprise Institute’s Housing Director of Research Tobias Peter says.

“It’s time for us to stop treating the purchase mortgage as some kind of market impediment or red flag for our forecasts,” says Chairman of JJAM Financial and former Ginnie Mae President Joseph Murin

For a surprising number of companies pursuing an IPO is a mistake, Endurance Advisory Partners CEO Stephen Curry says.

If new housing policy initiatives are not adopted by Congress, the Biden Administration may seek to push the GSEs into receivership, which would damage the conventional market, columnist and analyst Chris Whalen says.

What if mortgage lenders could earn borrowers’ confidence and affection even earlier, so that they would turn to them repeatedly for other loans, including that initial mortgage, CampusDoor CEO Steve Winnie asks.

Remote work and pandemic-induced requirements from the government related agencies forced lenders to pivot on a dime, making it entirely possible that compliance defects will have a larger share in future quarters, Nick Volpe, executive vice president of ACES Quality Management, says.

The move to a remote work model is a long-term, technology-driven transformation, which was well underway prior to the pandemic and will continue long after the pandemic, Matthew VanFossen and Taylor Stork, members of the Community Home Lenders Association, argue.