Foreclosures | Mortgages | Financing
After retreating for three consecutive months, the pipeline of pending home sales moved higher last month. Out front of the bounce was the West.
The U.S. Pending Home Sales Index was calculated to be 110.2 during June 2017. The index is a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, that turned out to be 1.5 percent higher than in May 2017, when the index had moved lower three months in a row.
From:: Financing
Servicing and staffing expanded from three months earlier and a year earlier at Primary Residential Mortgage Inc. Home lending activity moved up from the preceding quarter.
Single-family loans serviced by PRMI numbered 14,181 as of June 30. The collective unpaid principal balance for the mortgages was $2.559 billion.
The Salt Lake City-based mortgage banking firm made those disclosures and more as part of the Mortgage Daily Second Quarter 2017 Mortgage Origination Survey.
From:: Financing
In the recently published decision of Ocwen Loan Services v. Quinn, the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, affirmed a decision of the Superior Court, Passaic County, granting summary judgment in favor of a plaintiff-mortgagee, holding that the life estates of two defendants, who did not sign the plaintiff’s mortgage, were subordinated to the plaintiff’s mortgage based on the equitable principles recognized by the court in Sovereign Bank v. Gillis, 432 N.J. Super. 36 (App. Div. 2013), and the principles of replacement and modification.
In the affirmed ruling of the trial court, the Hon. Margaret Mary McVeigh allowed the plaintiff to “step into the shoes of its prior mortgage which its own funds satisfied,” but capped the amount of plaintiff’s priority at $260,000 — the amount of the prior-satisfied mortgage — plus an additional $43,019.85 for taxes and insurance advanced by the plaintiff and its predecessors while the mortgage loan was in default.
The court concluded that this result put the defendants in the same position they were in when they signed the prior $260,000 mortgage to which they had subordinated their life estates, and for that reason, affirmed the trial court order. In so doing, it permitted the lender to foreclose on the life estates — at least to the extent of the amount of the prior mortgage and the advances for taxes and insurance — rather than having to wait for the termination of those estates.
From:: Financing
Ocwen Financial Corp. has agreed to settle for $56 million a long-running class action securities fraud lawsuit.
The action stems from accusations that the Florida-based company misled investors by hiding servicing misconduct and potential conflicts of interest in 2013 and 2014, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The agreement needs court approval.
In a cash-and-stock agreement, Ocwen has agreed to pay the plaintiffs $49 million in cash and 2.5 million shares of common stock with a value of $7 million, according to the Form 8-K SEC filing.
From:: Financing
A quarter-over-quarter gain was reported for mortgage earnings and originations at Hilltop Holdings Inc. Year-over-year gains, however, were lacking as servicing shrunk.
Before income taxes, Hilltop earned $89 million during the three months ended mid-2017. Earnings improved from $50 million during the same three months last year.
The Dallas-based parent of PrimeLending disclosed the details along with other operational and financial results in its second-quarter 2017 earnings report.
From:: Financing
Interest rates on single-family loans retreated this past week. It’s possible, however, that mortgage rates could bounce back up in the next report.
Fixed interest rates on 30-year mortgages that were used to finance the purchase of single-family residences averaged 4.15 percent in June.
The average, which reflects conforming rates, was worse than the preceding month, with 30-year rates ascending 18 basis points from May.
From:: Financing
Freddie Mac has improved its outlook for industry-wide single-family lending this year and next year by $140 billion. A majority of the increase went to home purchase financing.
In its July 2017 Economic & Housing Market Forecast, the secondary lender predicted mortgage originations will be $485 billion in the third quarter, down from $529 billion three months earlier.
Freddie revised up its third-quarter projection from $469 billion in its June forecast, while the second-quarter estimate increased from $512 billion.
From:: Financing
Compared to the previous three-month period and the year-earlier quarter, home-lending activity at Churchill Mortgage Corp. was stronger. Staffing is shrinking, though.
The first half of this year ended with the Brentwood, Tennessee-based firm servicing three loans with an aggregate unpaid principal balance of under $0.001 billion.
Churchill divulged the details, in addition to other operational metrics, as part of the Mortgage Daily Second Quarter 2017 Mortgage Origination Survey.
From:: Financing
A wholesale mortgage lender is providing its mortgage-broker clients with hands-free access to current information about their loan pipelines.
The new offering promises to enable brokers to ask Alexa, the intelligent personal digital assistant from Amazon.com, the status of upcoming closings.
In addition to obtaining a hands-free pipeline status, brokers can utilize Alexa for integrated communications and scheduling functions.
From:: Financing
Two of the residential loan servicers that are considered to be among the five best saw borrower satisfaction erode this year. But the other three improved their standings.
The industry average score in the 2017 U.S. Primary Mortgage Servicer Satisfaction Study came in at 754 based on a 1,000-point scale.
Servicers lost ground this year compared to 2016, when the average score for the group of biggest mortgage servicers was 755.
From:: Financing