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“The housing market overall is on strong footing, but the data show that lenders are being cautious, given the spike in mortgage delinquency rates in the second quarter, as well as the ongoing economic uncertainty.”
–Joel Kan, MBA Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting.

Record-Low Interest Rates Spark Refi Surge in MBA Weekly Survey

We apparently haven’t seen a bottom in mortgage interest rates—and it got a lot of borrowers off their couches, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported this morning in its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending October 2.

Along Came COVID: Emerging Tech Trends in Commercial Real Estate Finance

Emerging technologies and start-up firms proliferated in commercial real estate over the last several years. With the conventional wisdom being that while the single-family real estate finance industry has embraced new technologies and innovation, CRE was a laggard and therein lies a massive opportunity.

Jessica Longman: Education is Key–Reduce Homeowner Frustration Regarding Property Taxes

Some of the most common questions that servicers receive from customers revolve around property taxes. An important aspect to providing an excellent experience for your customers includes educating them on the critical pieces they need to know about their loan; in turn this will reduce call volume relating to property tax questions and reduce overall homeowner frustration about taxes and payments.

Fitch: Remote Working to Affect Housing Demand—But Not U.S. RMBS Ratings

Fitch Ratings, New York, said while remote working in the U.S. accelerated as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and is reducing the importance of proximity to offices and causing migration from urban to suburban and exurban areas, it does not expect any material effect on the credit quality of its rated U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities pools.