Headlines

The default rates for both first mortgages and second mortgages dropped from August to September, fueling the decline in the composite index. The first mortgage default rate fell by eight basis points down to 0.76 percent and the second mortgage default rate dropped by 10 basis points down to 0.47 percent in September. Both rates are close to the historic lows for the first and second mortgage default rates of 0.74 percent and 0.42 percent, respectively, both reached in May 2015.

A combination of a lack of housing inventory, especially discounted and distressed, and a surge in demand for rental housing has caused more investors to turn to the build to rent strategy—that is, building a single-family home with the specific intent of renting it rather than sell it to an owner occupant.

Morgan Stanley reported net revenues of $7.8 billion for the quarter ending September 30, 2015, compared to net revenues of $8.9 billion from the same reporting period a year earlier. Net income applicable to Morgan Stanley for Q3 was also down from a year ago, from $1.7 billion at the end of Q3 2014 ($0.83 per diluted share) to $1.0 billion at the end of Q3 2015 ($0.48 per diluted share).

Irvine, California-based online real estate marketplace Auction.com has announced the acquisition of online real estate marketplace Allre and the hiring of Allre’s founder, Kathy Dryden, as SVP of product strategy.

Domestic-based end-to-end mortgage services provider LenderLive, based in Denver, Colorado, announced that Jeffrey Lewis has joined the company as a regional account executive for the firm’s Correspondent Lending line, covering New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania.

Superior Home Servies (SHS), an FHA default servicing specialist headquartered in Oakland, California, has announced the promotion of Ruth Delgado to VP of Global Operations.

Christie responded that the way to do it is to bring all the Republicans and Democrats from Congress and put them together and ask each side what it can live with and to stay together until they come up with a list of items that both sides agree on. And as president, he said, he would support the list that the sides agree on.

The Diversity & Inclusion Self-Assessment helps financial service organizations establish a benchmark for four key measurement areas that will enable them to prioritize actions and drive change, where necessary, within their organizations. The tool produces a score between one and five for each category, with companies performing at levels considered to be industry best practices reflecting an overall category score of four or five.

The conservatorships were required by law to put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a “sound and solvent condition” but this focus at times conflicted with other public policy objectives, such as the aggressive enforcement of the GSEs of “representations and warranties” whereby the firms “put back” large volumes of defaulted mortgages to their originators, according to the authors.

The HMDA dataset has not kept pace with the mortgage market’s evolution despite being the leading source of information for the market, CFPB said; for example, the HMDA data does not include adequate information about loan features such as adjustable-rate mortgages and non-amortizing loans which helped contribute to the mortgage crisis.