MBA Newslinks Archive

“Low interest rates combined with strong commercial property market fundamentals to further support lending and to keep overall borrowing levels on pace with last year’s strong level.”–MBA Vice President of Commercial Real Estate Research Jamie Woodwell.

“Refinance applications decreased 15 percent last week as rates increased across all product types in our survey.”–MBA Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni

“In lieu of MHA and HAMP, servicers and investors will need to use proprietary loss mitigation programs–either existing or new–and determine the appropriateness of such programs in a more economically stable, post-crisis environment. Such a framework should incorporate–and modify as necessary–the best practices and guiding principles that have led to positive outcomes for all stakeholders, including homeowners, investors and servicers.”–From a federal agencies’ white paper on future foreclosure mitigation programs.

“Homes are selling faster than ever as the home shopping season hits its peak. Adding to this difficult buying environment is low inventory–there simply aren’t many homes to choose from. And while this looks like a good time to be a seller, potential move-up buyers may hesitate to list their homes and become buyers. Until the supply increases, it will remain a tough market to find a home.”–Zillow Chief Economist Svenja Gudell.

“While MBA believes that energy efficient home improvements can be beneficial for homeowners, we have had significant concerns for years about PACE programs in general . Unfortunately, FHA’s new PACE guidance does little to ameliorate those concerns and raises important new questions about the lack of consumer protections, increased risks to the FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, and significant compliance and indemnification risks for lenders and servicers.”
–Pete Mills, MBA senior vice president of residential policy and member engagement.

“Markets are resilient, but it’s important to have clarity. Markets will adapt to intelligent, well-reasoned regulations and provide innovative solutions.”–Mortgage Bankers Association Chairman-Elect Rodrigo Lopez, CMB, during a webcast yesterday at the Republican National Convention.

“We are concerned that this program, as designed, would leave low- and moderate-income FHA borrowers more vulnerable to being misled and steered into financial obligations that they may not fully understand due to lack of disclosure. Further, the program puts taxpayers at risk by effectively making the FHA the guarantor of home improvement loans made by private contractors, thus increasing loss severity for the FHA program if borrowers default.”–Pete Mills, MBA Senior Vice President of Residential Policy and Member Engagement, on proposed FHA changes to its Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program.

“In a purchase market, one of the hardest things to manage is understanding where your borrower is in the process and making sure you are consistently communicating the right message to them based on their status.”–Josh Friend, founder and CEO of InSellerate, Costa Mesa, Calif.

“There are too many examples of opaque and corrupt practices, poor corporate governance and failures in regulatory enforcement that are resulting in serious consequences for society, business activity and for investment. Investors and tenants will bypass countries unable to address these shortcomings and will gravitate instead to more transparent markets.”–LaSalle Investment Management Global Head of Research and Strategy Jacques Gordon.

“Maintaining portfolio size can be an important factor as mortgage servicing is a scale business. Servicers that do not have associated origination platforms and service mostly performing loans are most exposed to portfolio runoff.”–Fitch Managing Director Roelof Slump.