Mortgages

Mission Capital Advisors in New York has merged its mortgage services business with Global Financial Review Inc. in Englewood, Colo.

Ten years ago, marketing departments focused mainly on transactions — continuously improving campaign response rates and measuring conversions in terms of dollars generated against dollars spent. Today's marketing departments are primarily focused on listening and engagement. They work to "own" the customer. Their focus is on the user and customer experience across a variety of platforms and media and making it as smooth and intuitive as possible.So, what does the future hold for marketers in the mortgage industry? The "martech revolution" has begun ushering in a digitally-powered age where borrowers are increasingly self-directing their own unique journeys to find the right mortgage company. Companies are doing the same as they seek to align with the right product and service providers to package themselves as an amazing overall experience.This self-directing of the buyer journey is a given outcome of the Information Age. Prospective buyers and users of products and services are much less influenced by your latest marketing campaign. The buyers' journey is no longer directed by you, and now includes a complex mixture of online research (blogs, social media, etc.), peer reviews, website views and comparisons. At the end of the journey, the prospective buyer has developed a sense of trust in one or more companies and then makes a decision.To facilitate these journeys, marketers will need to leverage big data to better understand customers, predict their behaviors (like the need to buy a house) and communicate with them directly. This means marketers will increasingly collect unstructured data from the online activities of the population and then analyze it to execute targeted digital engagement strategies. For example, someone conducting online searches and sharing content about planning a wedding may well indicate the future purchase of a home — which is useful data for any mortgage lender to act upon.Here are four new critical areas of focus for marketers in the mortgage industry:

When he's not co-hosting his talk radio show or helping clients, Residential Home Funding's Marc Demetriou is studying loan program guidelines, a task he credits for helping him become one of the industry's top producing loan officers.

Commercial real estate investment firm Case Real Estate Capital has purchase two nonperforming senior notes for $20.5 million.

A unique public-private program in Dane County, Wis., uses shared-appreciation mortgages to develop new affordable housing units more effectively than other traditional financing options.

In the wake of an unprecedented U.S. housing bust that evolved into a global financial crisis, the business of bundling home loans that aren't backed by the American government into bonds that can be sold to investors has all but disappeared.

Loan-to-value ratios in commercial real estate lending have returned to their levels from the bubble days, Moody's says. Loss-rates look good for now, but trouble could be coming.

American Advisors Group has begun marketing a jumbo reverse mortgage loan over a year after it first planned to issue them.

The refinance mortgage market's unexpected resilience in 2015 has come as the result of a number of well-timed factors coalescing to create a welcomed surprise to lenders.

When the late-night television comedians joke about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the two government-sponsored housing finance agencies that almost went belly-up during the housing crisis — you know they have reached the public consciousness.

A bulk Ginnie Mae servicing deal that an undisclosed seller will put up for bid soon is one of the largest transactions seen recently in the market.

American International Group won a decision that narrowed the claims by six investment funds that opted out of a $970.5 million class-action settlement last year over allegations the insurer misled investors about its exposure to subprime mortgages.

Evans Bancorp in Hamburg, N.Y., has agreed to pay $825,000 to settle a lawsuit that accused the company of mortgage redlining.

Consumers don't love to hate lenders, they just often do. By checking in on consumer experiences and opinions often, lenders can stay competitive and avoid negative attention from federal regulators.

Mortgage professional hiring and new job appointments for the week ending Sept. 11.

California's already tight housing market is facing another long-term complication: drought.

The gap between a homeowner's perceived value of their property versus an appraiser's widened in August on a monthly basis, according to Quicken Loans.

Mortgage applications by consumers purchasing a new home dipped in August from July, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The rising costs to service mortgages reflects a market where there are not only downsides to being too small, but hurdles to being too large — raising the question of whether there's a middle ground where servicers are not too big, not too small, but just right.

Homeowners are more pessimistic about the future of the housing market, while renters worry if they'll be able to afford to buy a home, according to a Zillow survey.