Page 8 - Mortgage Collaborative News Today

Did you know that cows snooze laying down for the four hours of sleep they need a day? Did you know that horses sleep standing up? These tidbits may come in handy for me this week as I head to Cody, Wyoming for the WMLA annual conference. Or they may not. Here’s a question not so trivial: what has 250,000 customers and a $37 billion unpaid principal balance? Answer: Rushmore Loan Management Services’ residential mortgage servicing platform, being sold to Mr. Cooper Group this year....

“Rob, earlier this week you posted some ‘units funded’ information from the MBA showing a dramatic decline from a few years ago... Dollar-wise, certainly we’re nowhere near the $4+ trillion funded in 2021. What are some of the other MBA thoughts about 2023 and beyond?” Wise economists will tell you, “If you’re going to put a number on it, don’t put a date on it, and if you’re going to put a date on it, don’t put a number ...

While here in Denver I received an email. “Rob, does what’s going on in Florida impact lenders?” I had to figure out if the author was asking about Disney/DeSantis, new Florida Man news, climate change, or insurance issues. Florida has a lot of cool things: manatees, Dry Tortugas National Park, Epcot Center, and cigar rollers in Tampa who do parties. Unfortunately it now has an additional insurance fee, as Florida has imposed a 1 percent “emergency” fee to prop...

A friend of mine who lives in her own unit in a mobile home park was telling me that her rent is about to go up by a huge amount, and said that, “That Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are behind it.” Correct or not, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae don’t need this kind of publicity and the public to have that impression, but sure enough, a quick news search turns up: “'Trapped': How Federally Backed Financing is Making Mobile Homes Less Affordable.” The wor...

(Warning: cuteness ahead.) How does it feel to be a loan officer dealing with multiple borrowers on one loan? The study of how people borrow money, and where they’re moving, is of great interest to LOs and lenders, as well as vendors and real estate agents. (Warning: numbers ahead.) Though many believed that the spike in WFH (work from home) workers associated with the COVID-19 pandemic would lead to greater geographic mobility, the number of domestic movers in the United States actually ...

“I’ve had $8,000 in my bank account and I’ve had $8. Let me tell you, the $8 lasted longer.” $42 billion in deposits didn’t last long in Silicon Valley Bank. Until lunch, basically, as money was silently transferred to other depositories in a matter of hours. Western Alliance is in the headlines today, and at another “headline” bank, First Republic Bank’s stock price plummeted down but has leveled off since, although the stock is trading at...

Today I’m in Manhattan, having flown in to one of the nicer malls I’ve ever walked through, aka LaGuardia Airport. ($8 billion goes a long way.) No, I am not here to avoid the terrible tornadoes that have hit our nation, and I didn’t use Rocket’s new pro-home buying credit card to book the flight. No, I am not here regarding Donald Trump’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, although he is expected to come to New York today and to be arraigned in criminal cou...

Not every house is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, single story subdivision home. Appraisers and underwriters aren’t big fans of places that aren’t, due to the lack of comps or the problems in “salability” should something go wrong. Inventive housing? Watch this house slide open to reveal Flexible Spaces (and an open-air bathroom). Some people have a home theater, but here’s a theater home for sale. And, finding homeowner’s insurance aside, what do kids do in this ...

I am in Reno today, Spokane tomorrow, but I spent much of last week in Chicago which is very much a melting pot of languages. One can walk down the street and hear similar words for the same thing: Hypothèque (French), hipoteca (Spanish), hipotēka (Latvian), hypotheek (Dutch), and hypothek (German). You’ll have to figure out the word on your own. Renovation there is indicative of what is happening in many other cities: Developers and city agencies in Chicago are working tog...

As noted in yesterday’s commentary, mergers and acquisitions of lenders are in the news across the nation. For curious lenders, it is good to have a general guide in how a buyer goes about valuing a lender. I happen to be in rainy Chicago now, but 1,700 miles away, there’s interesting news from the Phoenix area and the desert. How would you appraise a perfectly fine home that had no water? Rio Verde, aptly named Green River, a neighborhood outside of Scottsdale, Arizona, with some ...