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Reform is on the Horizon: Watt & Mnuchin Assess

The status quo for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be changing according to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. He and FHFA Director Melvin Watt separately addressed the state of the GSEs Thursday. Watt explained that reforms during conservatorship need to be kept in mind when addressing housing finance reform.

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Freddie Mac Prices First RPL Sale This Year

On Wednesday, Freddie Mac announced its first re-performing structured sale of 2017, a $292 million sale of a pool of seasoned loans from its mortgage investments portfolio. The pool of loans, currently being serviced by Select Portfolio Servicing Inc., includes loans with step-rate modifications and GSE loans modified under GSE proprietary modifications.

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Utilizing Tech Effectively

Although the industry has been slow to adopt, about three in five mortgage lenders agree that their firm is making the best use of data for their business. However, most lenders call themselves “technology followers,” not early adopters, and less than half stated that the pace of technological innovation in the industry has been too slow. Mortgage firms are starting to adopt new technologies like Application Programming Interfaces (API) in order to reduce errors and costs and speed up transactions.

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New York: A Property Tax Epicenter

When it comes to prices, nothing tops New York. 83 of the 100 buildings with the highest property taxes are located in New York City, according to a recent study. Topping the list is the the General Motors Building, which paid a total of $71,681,674 in taxes in 2016.

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Homes are Shrinking Again

New single family homes have been shrinking, according to the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB). According to the NAHB data, home sizes reached a plateau in 2015 and 2016 after experiencing a steady rise post-recession, but have started to drop off since. The post-recession increase in single-family home size is consistent with the historical pattern coming out of recessions.

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Examining Credit State By State

A recent study by LendEDU examines how credit has shifted by state. Experian’s data puts Minnesota at the top with an average credit score of 718. The top three metros witht eh highest credit scores were all in Minnesota: Mankato, Rochester, and Minneapolis. Nationally, the VantageScore average grew from 669 to 673 in 2016.

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Household Debt Reaches Recession-Level Highs

On Wednesday, the New York Federal Reserve released its Q1 report on household debt and credit. According to the report, total household debt totaled $12.73 trillion in Q1 2017. This means that household debt has finally surpassed its $12.68 trillion peak reached during the recession in 2008. This is a $149 billion quarterly increase.

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Falling Inventory Stock is Troubling

The falling inventory has many industry professionals worried, especially as demand picks up. Data from Redfin shows that homes in April sold the fastest since 2010, and sold 10 days faster than a year previously. Many homes, one in four, sold above their list price.

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Servicers Suffer from Disparate Tech

Out-of-sync technologies are holding businesses back, according to a recent report. Additionally, make it hard to serve the millennial homebuyer, who expects a more seamless, digitized solution when purchasing a home. This is largely because tech solutions in today’s post-crisis, highly-regulated industry are product-specific, which creates a “complex ecosystem made up of siloed disparate systems.”

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MERSCORP To Offer LEI Registrations Later This Year

MERSCORP Holdings, Inc., announced this week it will support the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s updated Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requirements by facilitating legal entity identifier (LEI) registrations and renewals for users of MERS System and other industry participants.

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