Industry Briefs Nov. 3, 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 the 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/.