Origination

Former employees say the New Jersey-based lender had its biggest reduction round yet, impacting close to a thousand positions.

But executives put a sunny spin on it, saying that its recent exit from forward mortgages will allow it to leverage reverse lending, where tailwinds will lead to profitability next year, management said.

The company has incurred a combined $91.8 million in expenses in the past two quarters related to its massive cost-cutting plan, which included the layoff of thousands of professionals.

But refinances dwindled further and helped drive overall volumes to a slight decline last week.

The government-sponsored enterprise put more money aside as mortgage interest rates rise and home prices start to decline.

The six active underwriters wrote 14% less business compared with the second quarter and 30% from one year prior.

Both lenders did not disclose how many positions have been terminated.

It came as a surprise to many housing experts that Asian, Black and Hispanic homeownership rates all jumped last year by more than 2 percentage points, according to quarterly Census Bureau data.

The $1.3 trillion decline was the largest quarterly drop in dollar volume and the biggest falloff on a percentage basis since 2009, according to Black Knight.

The limit for high-cost areas for 2023, 50 percent above the baseline limit, would be approximately $1.08 million, writes a former principal economist with the Federal Housing Finance Agency.