Mortgage technology

The percentage of mortgage loans refinancing as part of the overall origination market continued to grow in February following January's blockbuster month, according to data released Wednesday by Ellie Mae.

Today's college students are the mortgage borrowers of the future. They'll expect mobile interactions with lenders, but engaging them with the technology can be trickier than building the perfect bracket.

From interest rate movements to new disclosures and vendor management challenges, the recent Regional Conference of Mortgage Bankers Associations touched on myriad hot-button topics the mortgage industry faces this year.

An outage that crippled the Internal Revenue Service's ability to process 4506-T forms for nearly two weeks has been resolved, but the capacity constraints in the tax transcript service are an ongoing challenge for the mortgage industry.

Right now policy makers, industry participants and advocates are no doubt discussing how to remedy the housing industry's problems. Their discussions are based on assumptions that might not be correct.

Lending groups are demanding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau take down its mortgage rate calculator, arguing it is providing misleading information to consumers.

Lloyd's of London and Bankers Insurance Service will now offer errors and omissions insurance for Litigation Guard, an online system which performs compliance checks for non-QM loans.

Online mortgage lender Privlo has entered the Texas market, looking to help those underserved by traditional lenders in securing home financing.

Mortgage professional hiring and new job appointments for the week ending March 13.

MISMO released the latest version of its Residential Reference Model, opening up the standard to review.

Banks can expect to incur higher costs in several areas during the implementation of a settlement agreement to improve the accuracy of credit reports. But they might benefit in the long run by getting better information on borrowers.

Home values rose across the country in February, even as appraisers' opinions of values fell below those of homeowners nationwide for the first time in over a year, according to Quicken Loans.

Telecommuting isn't new for front-office loan officers, but in an increasingly competitive hiring environment, some mortgage lenders now let their underwriters work from home, too.

The recent delay of new HECM rules is a reprieve for lenders scrambling to implement training and systems updates ahead of the original deadline. But it's also prompted questions about a key technology used by the reverse mortgage industry.

Mobile has exploded on the consumer side and financial institutions are realizing that they have to make services available on these devices.

There are better ways of picking an originator to work with than just looking at a price comparison tool.

Having the extra time for implementation has been helpful because mortgage companies were experiencing difficulties meeting the first deadline for the change in procedure, which affects government-insured reverse mortgages.

Although lenders received some good news via Freddie Mac's February U.S. Economy and Housing Market Outlook, raising the enterprise's 2015 originations forecast from $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion, the Aug. 1 TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule implementation deadline still looms large.

The scorecard compares issuers' operational strength and skill in managing delinquent loans with those of their peers.

It can be difficult to have enough staff to handle an exchange of mortgage servicing rights, though companies are exploring different solutions