News

Although 2013 was the strongest year for home prices in nearly a decade, is a slowdown on the horizon for 2014? The S&P Dow Jones Indices released Tuesday its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, which had some interesting revelations for the housing market in the future.

Liquid Logics, the developer of the industry’s first cloud-based loan origination system (LOS), announced Monday the company has promoted Peter Kallodaychsak, a 15-year veteran of the mortgage technology industry, to VP of Business Development.

TeleVoice, a provider of customized telephony applications, announced Monday the updated release of its whiter paper on enhancing call center efficiency. The white paper details how customer satisfaction can be improved by utilizing Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)-enabled Screen Pop technology.

A new report by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) says mortgage risk remains unaffected by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) qualified mortgage (QM) guidelines. The group’s National Mortgage Risk Index (NMRI), a measure of loan performance under stressful economic conditions, increased to a reading of 11.8 percent in January from 10.6 percent at the end of 2013.

The Data & Analytics division of Black Knight Financial Services released on Monday its latest Home Price Index (HPI), noting an increase of .1 percent in home prices to $232,000 for the month of December. The figure represents the price of non-distressed sales by taking into account price discounts for real estate owned (REO) and short sales.

Per new regulations finalized last week, the GSEs will be required to file suspicious activity reports (SARs) directly with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) rather than through their own regulator. Developed in coordination with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), FinCEN’s final rule is intended to provide law enforcement and regulators with a more complete picture of mortgage fraud.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ordered 1st Alliance Lending, LLC (First Alliance) to pay an $83,000 civil money penalty for violating federal law. The company illegally split real estate settlement fees, leading to the CFPB ordered payout. First Reliance self-reported the violations to the Bureau, admitted liability, and provided information related to other actors that helped facilitate other investigations.

United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) announced Friday it has developed and launched a mobile application for its broker community. The application gives brokers "robust functionality and easy access to loan information while in the field," the release said.

Fannie Mae released its weekly yield for February 17, through February, 21. For 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, the current market yield is noted was 2.970, up from the previous weeks figure of 2.870. The 15-year mortgage has increased from 2.310 a year ago. The Fannie Mae release comments that all yields are quoted on a net basis, and servicing fees are not included.

Chief economist at CoreLogic, Mark Fleming, notes new factors affecting a homeowners ability to buy a home. The ability for a prospective buyer to purchase a home depends greatly on whether the buyer already owns a home, a report released Thursday notes. The market is being affected by the intersection of rising home prices, rising interest rates and stagnating incomes, which puts first-time buyers behind the curve that has benefitted them greatly since 2007.