Mortgage demand fell again last week as interest rates climbed higher, but one type of loan is attracting borrowers. Adjustable rate mortgages, or ARMs, which
Sorry the commentary is a little late this morning. I received an email from my IT department that I needed to change my username and password. It took me a few minutes to remember that I didn’t have an IT department. Beware of those phishing expeditions! Technology… if it weren’t for my pets or grandparents, I don’t know what I’d do for passwords. There are obviously pluses from technology, of course, and thank you to Steve Richman who told me about Canva, a marketing website that appears darned easy to use. How about the darker side of tech, even including today’s “joke” about how card shuffling machines can be influenced and hacked into. (Do you really think virtual Wonder Woman slot machines are random?) Thank you to those who passed along this story about the aftermath of a cyberattack on a Southern California data host for property listing information, Rapattoni Corporation, freezing up real estate transactions and valuation
A general discussion topic of those here at the MMLA conference in Michigan is the ups and downs we’re all facing. While mortgage applications drift down, and industry headcounts go down, and towns on Maui like Lahaina burn down, here’s something that isn’t going down: credit card debt. Talk to any underwriter or loan officer and they will tell you that loans have become more difficult, in part because of borrower debt loads, and sure enough credit card balances hit $1.03 trillion in the second quarter. And it ain’t going down. The number is up 4.6 percent from $986 billion in the preceding three-month period. For some good economist’s perspectives and interest rates in general, and one capital markets guy’s, tune in to “Unparalleled Insights into Trends and Bold Predictions” with Selma Hepp (CoreLogic’s Chief Economist), Michael Fratantoni (MBA’s chief economist), and Rob Chrisman” on Wednesday August 16th at
“Once things were so tough for me, I worked at a cheap pizza shop to get by. I kneaded the dough.” Things are indeed tough out there. The other day I caught my cat Myrtle at the keyboard, apparently trying to show my new granddaughter Kozette how to apply for a loan to buy a tuna fishing boat. (I know, there’s a lot going on here.) Anyway, up on the screen was a website that will generate a paystub given whatever information you provide. How’d you like to be an underwriter, trying to assure that the borrower has the ability to repay, with this out there? Hence the need, obviously, for some kind of third-party verification service, right? Meanwhile, companies, large and small, continue to sell servicing rights in packages, large and small, in order to raise cash. Servicing is, pretty much, all a lender has in terms of net worth. And when their servicing is gone, well…? For a good bell weather of the general industry, yesterday we had loanDepot'