Mortgage technology

Tree.com, the parent of LendingTree, increased fourth-quarter revenue by more than half from a year earlier, a feat the company credited to strategy changes and new products.

Hope LoanPort has started new collaborative partnerships with several national organizations to collectively provide foreclosure-related fraud prevention assistance to homeowners.

Zaio Corp., a Canadian company that tracks property values in the U.S., is in talks to acquire Axis Appraisal Management Solutions.

FICO plans to release a new broad-based scoring model this summer that helps lenders analyze a consumer's credit risk with greater accuracy.

Mortgage Technology is pleased to begin accepting nominations for the 2014 Top 50 Service Providers.

The nomination form is available on MT's website. Click here to access the application.

The Fix-It Award recognizes technology that provides an effective solution to a specific industry problem, need or channel. Learn about this year's finalists and see who won the 2013 MT Award.

Success in business, just as in team sports, depends on using the individual with the right skills to score.

New Year's resolutions are beginning to fade and the reality of the shrinking origination market has settled in for most residential mortgage lenders.

Wipro Gallagher Solutions announced its NetOxygen loan origination system has added an integration with mortgage technology developer Optimal Blue's product and pricing engine.

Woodward Asset Capital has started a real estate brokerage brand catering specifically to property sellers, including banks and mortgage servicers unloading foreclosed homes.

Loan modifications continued their dominance as the primary method for foreclosure prevention in 2013, both through government-driven and proprietary servicer programs.

Many conversations in the loan process start with this often uttered, never welcome phrase: "I am going to need an explanation…" If you were on the receiving end of that message, how would that make you feel?

Business contingency plans kept originators and vendors humming along at almost normal during the January and February blizzards.

It has to do with the visibility and prominence of your company when consumers conduct online searches.

Mortgage servicing has long been a scale business, but rising compliance costs are now threatening the survival of smaller operations that lack efficient systems or staff expertise, industry experts say.

Marketers should try different platforms and see which of them work best for their needs.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's crackdown on mortgage servicers' operations will increase the pressure on lenders to improve their processes, paperwork and communications with borrowers. National Mortgage News journalists discuss how both banks and nonbank servicers can get ahead of the new regulatory scrutiny.

Lower volumes and increased regulation are leading more lenders to consider outsourcing. But the savings and compliance improvements must outweigh increased liability for contractors and a rise in offshore prices.

Once written off as an endangered species, nonbank home lenders are making a comeback in the third-party origination businesses abandoned by banks since the financial crisis.

There are many conversations that take place during the mortgage process, and a lot of them are conversations between players in the industry.