Refinance

The switch to a buyer's home purchase market, as well as fewer natural disasters helped drive the five-month-long decline in mortgage application fraud risk, First American said.

The recent spike in mortgage interest rates reduced home purchase application activity last week, contributing to a 10.1% decline in total activity, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Denmark is about to become a test case for what happens when banks start charging a lot of customers to store their money.

Foreclosure starts dropped to their lowest level in 18 years, and properties foreclosed on but not yet sold fell to a 14-year low in August, according to Black Knight.

The number of mortgage holders with refinancing potential dropped by 1.5 million as the average long-term rate for home loans continued to rise, according to Black Knight.

Mortgage applications decreased 0.1% from one week earlier as conforming and jumbo interest rates climbed back above 4%, which slowed refinance activity, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

While the critical defect rate for closed mortgage loans fell on a quarter-to-quarter basis, there were increases in income and packaging-related deficiencies, an Aces Risk Management study found.

A mere 7-basis-point increase in interest rates reduced what was a record-high number of borrowers with refinancing incentive by 2 million in a matter of days, according to Black Knight.

Mortgage credit availability tightened in August by the most since the end of last year, even though falling interest rates sparked a strong uptick in refinancings, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

Digital mortgage strategies do more to support loan officers than some people think, according to Tom Wind, executive vice president of consumer lending at U.S. Bank.