Planet Home Lending LLC, Meriden, Conn., promoted Kathy Keller to SVP of Strategic Initiatives and hired Mike Eckrote as SVP of Quality Control and Christopher Joles as SVP and Enterprise Risk Officer.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Housing Finance Agency and HUD yesterday launched a new mortgage and housing assistance website designed to ensure homeowners and renters have current and accurate housing assistance information during the COVID-19 national emergency.

New apartment lease signings “clawed back” to year-ago levels in late April after plunging nearly 50 percent in late March, reported RealPage, Richardson, Texas.

JLL Capital Markets, Chicago, arranged $85.2 million for retail and condominium properties in Boulder, Colo. and Miami.

The financial services and mortgage industries have not felt the full impact and unintended consequences of COVID-19 and the governmental interventions. The result will be that innovation disruption moving forward will be not be kind, will not be benevolent, and will not be industry friendly.

Jina Choi is Vice President of Enterprise Innovation with loandepot.com

Necessity is the mother of all invention, so the saying goes. No, not exactly true here. RON was already being deployed in pockets across the industry pre-coronavirus. Therefore, its more appropriate to proclaim, “perplexing problems produce instant popularity where past procrastination persisted.” Said more plainly – nothing is more white-hot than RON right now, and everyone suddenly cannot live without it. Demand far-outstrips supply by a factor too large to contemplate.

As the industry becomes increasingly digital, mortgage professionals must find a way to survive and keep up with demand at rapid speed. Unfortunately, the latest and greatest technology comes at a price. To truly succeed, mortgage professionals need to determine strategies that reduce expenses while offering a convenient relationship-based mortgage experience for borrowers.