Industry Briefs Nov. 5, 2021: Pretium Acquires Anchor Loans

Pretium Acquires Anchor Loans

Pretium, New York, a specialized investment management firm with $30 billion in assets, acquired Anchor Loans LP, a provider of financing to residential real estate investors and entrepreneurs, from affiliates of Wafra Capital Partners Inc. and other owners. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Following close of the transaction, Anchor Loans will continue to be led by CEO Andrew Pollock and the current management team and retain its headquarters in Thousand Oaks, Calif. American Equity Investment Life Insurance Company provided financing for the acquisition as part of an expansion of its strategic partnership with Pretium. In addition, American Equity acquired $1 billion of loans originated by Anchor Loans concurrent with closing.

Nomura Securities International, Inc. acted as financial advisor and Sidley Austin LLP acted as legal advisor to Pretium. Piper Sandler & Co. acted as financial advisor and O’Melveny & Myers acted as legal advisor to Anchor Loans.

FormFree Integrates with OpenClose

FormFree, Athens, Ga., announced availability of its AccountChek financial data verification service within OpenClose, a fintech provider of mortgage software platforms for banks, credit unions and mortgage lenders. The integration embeds AccountChek into OpenClose’s ConsumerAssist Enterprise POS and LenderAssist LOS, enabling borrowers to electronically permission verification data when applying for a mortgage loan.

AccountChek streamlines the lending process by empowering borrowers to electronically permission financial account and payroll data, thereby enabling lenders to verify asset, income, employment and rental history in a combined, underwriter-friendly report. By integrating AccountChek with OpenClose’s lending platforms, lenders expedite time-to-close, reducing loan production costs and mitigating the risk of fraud.

HUD Allocates More than $2 Billion to Advance Equitable Disaster Recovery, Build Climate Change Resilience

HUD allocated more than $2 billion in Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery and CDBG-Mitigation funds appropriated in the continuing resolution, the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act.

This allocation is being made to 10 states covering 15 separate major disasters that occurred calendar year 2020. Funds will go to recover from and build resilience to natural disasters, including climate disasters, with a specific focus on low- and moderate-income populations. The funds are specified to be used for: “disaster relief, long-term recovery, restoration of infrastructure and housing, economic revitalization, and mitigation, in the most impacted and distressed areas.” 

Ginnie Mae Announces New MBS Pool Type for Extended-Term Mortgages

Ginnie Mae issued an All-Participants Memorandum (APM 21-05) that details creation of a new Single-Family, fixed rate MBS pool type to provide for securitization of modified loans with terms greater than or equal to 361 but not more than 480 months from the pool issuance date.

The new Extended Term pool will be available for pool issuance in December.

Pacaso Launches Luxury Second Home Co-ownership Platform in Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge

Pacaso, Breckenridge, Colo., a platform that helps people buy and co-own a luxury second home, expanded its service to Aspen, Vail and Breckenridge. The company has begun hiring a regional team and is working with a variety of local businesses to support its operations.

Pacaso partners with interested real estate agents and brokerages in markets where it operates. Real estate agents representing buyers who purchase a share of a Pacaso home receive a 3% commission in addition to 500 RSUs of Pacaso stock as a referral equity bonus.

Rocket Mortgage Partners with Salesforce

Rocket Mortgage, Detroit, announced a partnership with Salesforce to make the company’s mortgage origination technology available to banks, credit unions and other financial institutions nationwide through Salesforce Financial Services Cloud.

The partnership builds on Rocket Companies’ existing relationship as a Salesforce customer. Currently, the company leverages Salesforce Financial Services Cloud and Marketing Cloud to serve as a single source for their customer data on an engagement platform, tailored to real estate and lending. Licensed mortgage loan officers can use Rocket Mortgage’s technology, directly in Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, as their Point-Of-Sale and loan origination system, to provide a client experience to home buyers and those refinancing their mortgage.

Mortgage Coach Integrates with Sales Boomerang

Mortgage Coach, Irvine, Calif., announced an integration with Sales Boomerang to convert leads identified with Sales Boomerang’s opportunity alerts by enabling lenders to automatically generate accurate TCA presentations that are highly relevant to consumers’ housing finance needs.

Sales Boomerang monitors customer databases on behalf of lenders to identify exactly when a prospect or past customer is ready for a new loan. By combining market intelligence with mortgage lenders’ credit underwriting preferences, Sales Boomerang notifies lenders of high-relevancy loan opportunities. Through the integration with Mortgage Coach, every Sales Boomerang opportunity alert from any managed contact record automatically includes a tailored Mortgage Coach TCA that can be used in any form of client or marketing outreach.

Black Knight: Refis Deliver $14 Billion in Monthly Savings to Homeowners

Black Knight, Jacksonville, Fla., said recent rate increases have eliminated refinance incentive for 3.4 million mortgage-holders, but the population of 11.5 million remaining high-quality candidates is still larger than at any time prior to 2020.

The company’s monthly Mortgage Monitor said in the 18 months since the start of the pandemic, homeowners have reduced their mortgage payments by more than $1.3 billion per month through rate/term refinances, realizing $14 billion in savings to date. By the end of 2022, those borrowers will have realized nearly $35 billion in aggregate savings, with the potential for nearly $16 billion per year in continuing, ongoing economic stimulus. Another 5.5 million homeowners took advantage of low rates and record home price growth to tap available equity via cash-outs, which – as rates rise – now make up the majority of refinance activity.

“By nearly any measure, that is an extraordinary level of potential stimulus to the economy as a direct result of refinance lending,” said Black Knight Data and Analytics President Ben Graboske. “It would not be surprising to see similar behavior among ‘equity-centric’ borrowers as we move forward into 2022.”

PMI Rate Pro White Paper Discusses Key to Winning Borrower Trust

PMI Rate Pro, Kansas, City, published a new white paper that explains in detail how brokers and loan officers can use timely information to stop loan fallout, close more loans and earn more referral business. The paper is available at no cost on the company’s website.

“The lenders that stay in the business when it gets tough will be the ones who have a strategy for winning borrower trust,” said Nomi Smith, PMI Rate Pro founder and CEO. “Today’s home loan borrowers are savvy. They get technology, they expect frequent communication and they want more information and better customer service.”

Trust is viral, Smith says, and will bring the lenders who earn it repeat and referral business. Even more important in the short term, it will increase their pull-through by holding borrowers tight so they don’t leave for another financing source before the loan is closed. Finally, it will allow them to build stronger relationships with the business referral partners they depend upon for new purchase money mortgage business.

The paper is available at https://pmiratepro.com/.  

Guild Mortgage Launches Medical Professional Mortgage Program to Help Doctors Purchase First Home

Guild Mortgage, San Diego, introduced a new mortgage option designed to make it easier for medical professionals to buy their first home.

Under the Guild program, qualified medical professionals, including those who have just graduated from medical school, can qualify for a home loan with up to 100% financing, no required mortgage insurance and the ability to exclude student debt from their debt-to-income ratio. The program offers loans up to $850,000.

Freddie Mac Initiative Helps Renters Build Credit

Freddie Mac, McLean, Va., announced an initiative to help renters build credit by encouraging operators of multifamily properties to report on-time rental payments to the three major credit-reporting bureaus.

The initiative, which incentivizes rent reporting via technology created by Esusu Financial Inc., will deliver on-time rental payment data from property management software platforms to the credit bureaus. It will automatically unenroll renters when missed payments occur, preventing harm to those who struggle financially. Freddie Mac will provide closing cost credits on multifamily loans for owners of rental properties who agree to report on-time rental payments through Esusu’s platform.

ACES Quality Management Announces ACES ENGAGE Conference

ACES Quality Management, Denver, launched ACES ENGAGE, a conference designed to bring together the nation’s top financial services quality management professionals to discuss industry trends and best practices. 

ACES ENGAGE will provide attendees the opportunity to learn from industry experts and thought leaders, network and leave with the knowledge necessary to increase efficiencies, improve productivity and further quality at their organizations. Sessions will include a mixture of general session presentations, panel discussions and breakout session tracks for mortgage lending, loan servicing and consumer lending. It will take place at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs on May 23-25, 2022. Registration is available at https://www.acesquality.com/aces-engage-2022.   

CFPB Issues Advisory Opinion on False Identification by Background Screeners

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Nov. 4 issued an advisory opinion affirming that consumer reporting companies, including tenant and employment screening companies, are violating the law if they engage in shoddy name-matching procedures.

The Bureau said regulators are concerned about the significant harms caused by false identity matching, where an applicant is disqualified from rental housing or a job based on having the same name as another individual with negative information in their credit history. Specifically, the CFPB affirmed that the practice of matching consumer records solely through the matching of names is illegal under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

The Bureau said for Black and Hispanic communities, who were disproportionately affected by the pandemic, the need for accuracy is even more acute. The risk of mistaken identities from name-only matching is likely to be greater among Hispanic, Black, and Asian communities because there is less surname diversity in those populations compared to the white population. With families across the country seeking affordable rental units and new employment, careless background screening practices can unnecessarily contribute to housing instability and unemployment.

“When background screening companies carelessly assign a false identity to applicants for jobs and housing, they are breaking the law,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. “No one should lose out on a job or an apartment because of sloppy and illegal matching. Error-ridden background screening reports may disproportionately impact communities of color, further undermining an equitable recovery.”

The statement can be found at https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_name-only-matching_advisory-opinion_2021-11.pdf.

TMC Emerging Technology Fund LP to Host TMC Mortgage Tech Day Mar. 19

The Mortgage Collaborative, San Diego, announced the TMC Emerging Technology Fund LP will host TMC Mortgage Tech Day on March 19, 2022, in conjunction with TMC’s Winter Conference at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach.

The TMC Mortgage Tech Day is an opportunity for fintech and mortgage tech companies to present to a live audience of TMC’s Emerging Tech Fund limited partners, which comprises TMC mortgage lender executives, and a panel of judges from leading mortgage tech venture capital firms. Presenters will receive visibility by top lenders in the country, consideration for investment by the fund and national media coverage, and the top three are also eligible for a cash prize. Target investment themes include Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Machine Vision/Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Web & Mobile Applications, Cybersecurity & Blockchain Applications, and Digital Transaction Platforms. 

Interested companies must submit an application here by January 14. All applicants will be screened by the TMC Emerging Technology Fund for a chance to present during TMC Mortgage Tech Day.

LoanNEX Integrates with ICE Mortgage Technology’s Encompass TPO Connect

LoanNEX, St. Louis, a newly approved pricing and eligibility platform, integrated with ICE Mortgage Technology’s Encompass TPO Connect, a configurable web-based portal that enables lenders to collaborate with their wholesale and correspondent channels to originate loans faster, stay compliant and maximize loan profitability.

LoanNEX combines pricing and eligibility technology with secondary marketing services to streamline the discovery and decisioning process between borrowers, lenders and investors. LoanNEX also screens more than 100 borrower attributes, providing third-party originators with access to many non-QM loan options not available with traditional product and pricing engines.

Black Knight: Loans in Forbearance Down Another 85,000

Black Knight, Jacksonville, Fla., said its McDash Flash daily loan-level forbearance data saw a sizable decrease in the number of active forbearance plans as the calendar ticked forward into the new month, with a 85,000 total decline across all investor classes.

The week’s strongest declines were seen in FHA/VA plans, which marked a 42,000 (-9%) plan reduction. Strong improvement was also seen among GSE (-22,000, -6%) plans and on those among loans held in bank portfolios or private label securities (-21,000, -5.3%).

As of November 2, Black Knight said 1.14 million mortgage holders remain in COVID-19 related forbearance plans, representing 2.1% of all active mortgages, including 1.2% of GSE, 3.5% of FHA/VA and 2.8% of portfolio held and privately securitized loans. Meanwhile, it reported new forbearance plan starts fell by 8% this week, with re-start activity falling to its lowest level since early October.