National Mortgage News - April 2021

2021's Top Producers

A loan officer logging a billion-dollar volume topped the ranking for the first time in the 23-year history of the survey.

From offering operations folks big bonuses to grooming recent grads, lenders are getting creative in their efforts to manage staffing throughout the boom-bust cycle.

Pre-fabricated homes that have features and GSE financing competitive with traditional houses could bring prices down roughly into the $200,000 range, making them affordable to roughly 1.5 million people.

Stuck between local zoning hurdles and a lack of ideal federal financing, ADUs could be an important aspect to unlocking much-needed inventory.

Relying on retained earnings alone, it would be until at least 2036, if not longer, before government control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae might end.

The government-sponsored enterprise announced Wednesday it will change eligibility criteria for vacation homes and investor properties starting April 1 to fulfill a directive by former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

One government agency is committed to collecting new data about foreclosure sale outcomes during the current lull in activity. The industry hopes it won’t lead to developments that bog down work later.

The rush to refinance led to more errors in January and the shift to more-risky purchase apps will add to lenders' fraud concerns going forward.

Servicers struggled to bring back their borrowers as the overall retention rate crept down to a nadir in the fourth quarter, according to Black Knight.

The Michigan bank is the latest company to have customer data compromised through a software vulnerability. The incident reinforces the importance of attack simulations, constant searches for intrusions and exchanges of intel with peers.

In its final days, the Trump administration imposed limits on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s holdings of mortgages with loan-to-value ratios above 90% and certain other characteristics. Critics say the changes were unnecessary and disproportionately penalize borrowers of color.

The complaint alleged the bank discriminated by refusing to make a mortgage loan after learning it would be used to finance a group home for disabled people.

And there are some brawls on the field affecting the direction of business for the rest of this year.