Industry Briefs, Jan. 23, 2024
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Dark Matter Announces New Workflow With Rent Payments in Empower LOS
Dark Matter Technologies, Jacksonville, Fla., announced the availability of a new automated workflow in its Empower loan origination system to make it easier for lenders to identify and qualify loan applicants who could benefit from evaluation of their positive rent payment history.
The feature was developed in partnership with Informative Research, Garden Grove, Calif., and it utilizes the positive rent payment history enhancement in Fannie Mae’s Desktop Underwriter. That enhancement was introduced with the goal of promoting equitable and sustainable homeownership among renters with limited credit histories.
“Using positive rent payment history in credit evaluations is one of several ways Fannie Mae is improving access to affordable homeownership that supports our commitment to our mission and strong credit underwriting standards,” said Peter Skarnulis, Fannie Mae Vice President of Single-Family Digital Management Solutions. “This new workflow makes it more practical for lenders to take advantage of this feature, which can help more first-time homebuyers qualify for a home loan.”
NRL Mortgage Partners With Calque on The Trade-In Mortgage
NRL Mortgage, Houston, has partnered with Calque, Austin, to launch The Trade-In Mortgage in 45 states, which will allow homeowners to leverage their home equity to purchase a new home before selling their current one.
NRL Mortgage clients will be able to use the equity in their current program to make non-contingent offers, finance and move into their next home, and it will help them qualify for that new home by bypassing key debt considerations while the new loan is being underwritten.
In the current market, retail purchasers are finding themselves at a disadvantage compared with those who can make all-cash bids–the company says the new offering will help those customers win bids.
Optimal Blue Expands Mobile App
Optimal Blue, Plano, Texas, announced releases related to its publicly listed, native mobile app for the Optimal Blue PPE, including a new Android mobile app and enhancements to the mobile offering for iOS.
The Optimal Blue PPE Mobile App allows loan officers to access scenario pricing from their phones, providing what the company calls “pricing in their pocket.” The app provides the full array of pricing inputs and granularity currently available on the web version.
In addition to the new Android app, the iOS version now includes pricing analysis from the Optimal Blue Mortgage Market Indices.
Ncontracts Announces Ntelligent Contracts Assistant Module
Ncontracts, Brentwood, Tenn., launched a new AI-powered Ntelligent Contracts Assistant module within Nvendor, to help reduce the time of contract reviews.
It uses artificial intelligence trained by Ncontracts’ legal and contract management experts to quickly extract key information from third-party vendor contracts and agreements. This provides companies with the ability to easily score contracts for risk and adherence to regulatory requirements, generate summaries of key contract terms, automatically create alerts for key dates and search contracts for key terms and provisions.
The Ntelligent Contracts Assistant is available only as an add-on to Nvendor, Ncontracts’ powerful third-party risk management solution.
BluePoint Mortgage Deploys OptifiNow Platform
BluePoint Mortgage, Newport Beach, Calif., announced it has deployed the OptifiNow TPO CRM Platform.
OptifiNow is based in Seal Beach, Calif.
The platform will provide BluePoint Mortgage with a set of tools to streamline the sales and engagement processes. Among numerous features is the Broker Scorecard, which can score brokers based on loan performance and past activity.
Ginnie Mae’s MBS Portfolio Outstanding Hits $2.52 Trillion
Ginnie Mae announced its mortgage-backed securities portfolio outstanding grew to $2.52 trillion in December, including $28.7 billion of total MBS issuance, leading to $13 billion in net growth.
Last month’s issuance supports the financing of almost 95,000 households, with more than 47,000 first-time buyers. More than 75% of the December MBS issuance reflects new mortgages that support home purchases as refinance activity remained low.
The month’s issuance includes $27.6 billion of Ginnie Mae II MBS and nearly $1.02 billion of Ginnie Mae I MBS, including about $902 million in loans for multifamily properties.
