Mortgage applications fell last week from one week earlier despite record low interest rates, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported this morning in its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 29.

(One of a continuing series of profiles of participants in the MBA Education Path to Diversity (P2D) Scholarship Program, which enables employees from diverse backgrounds to advance their professional growth and career development.)

Chris McEntee is President of ICE Mortgage Services, Atlanta, the business unit responsible the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS), which is now part of Intercontinental Exchange Inc. He serves as a Director of ICE Mortgage Services, the governing board of MERSCORP Holdings Inc. and chairs the Company’s Compliance, Governance and Risk Management Committee.

What follows are findings from a survey of senior mortgage executives I conducted in the first half of May. Due to cancelation of MBA’s National Secondary Market Conference, this survey was completed over the phone rather than face to face, as has been the case in the 23 preceding surveys done since 2008. Normally the surveys are conducted at the secondary conference as well as at the MBA Annual Convention every October.

Mortgage bankers and consumer lenders of every stripe have their plates full right now, so some may have missed a significant development or not had the bandwidth to consider its implications. One of America’s primary investors in loans to consumers has lost confidence in automated systems used for verifying loan applicants’ current employment status, accelerating an already-in-motion shift in how borrowers’ ability to repay needs to be assessed.

COVID-19 has impacted the entire United States and commercial real estate is no exception; however, no property type is quicker to experience the impacts of a downturn than lodging, where rental rates reset daily.

With all that has hit the mortgage industry over the past several months, Mortgage Bankers Association Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni has a positive message for mortgage lenders and servicers: “It seems like the industry has done a fantastic job of finding solutions in this crazy environment,” Fratantoni said yesterday during MBA Live: Technology Solutions Conference.

NorthMarq, Minneapolis, secured $33.3 million for office and mixed-use assets in Texas and Washington.