Scaling from Freelancer to Business Owner

Jay Plum, head of consumer lending at Fifth Third Bank, says artificial intelligence is fundamentally shifting relationships between banks and their third-party software vendors, allowing banks to do things on their own that they would previously rely on vendors to do for them, like identify risky loans and prepare for exams. View the full article

Conforming loan limits are determined using a home price index. A congressman is proposing a switch to an income-based metric, creating more jumbo mortgages. View the full article

The effective tax rate, measuring taxes relative to home prices, also increased to its highest mark in five years, according to Attom's analysis. View the full article

The California-based lender announced Wednesday the addition of One Goal Mortgage, a branch serving the Omaha, Nebraska, metro area and Southwest Iowa. View the full article

Better is focusing on its U.S. mortgage unit, which reported higher-than-expected preliminary loan volumes and priced a stock offering. View the full article

A new Basel III proposal offers mixed results for warehouse lending, with some risk-weight relief for banks but tougher terms that could crimp credit availability for nonbank mortgage lenders. View the full article

Roughly a third of homeowners with a mortgage rate less than 6% would not give up their rate for any reason, according to a survey of 1,000 mortgage holders. View the full article

A Iran ceasefire sparked a $20 oil drop and Treasury rally, narrowing the rate-cut window from 18 to 15 months, but key technical resistance levels and a potentially ugly Friday CPI report could still reshape the outlook, according to the head of correspondent business development at AD Mortgage. View the full article

In other news, Better Mortgage completed warehouse renewals and Wolters Kluwer provided a new form of access to its digital vault platform for secured parties. View the full article

A United Wholesale Mortgage executive stepped in to defend a claim against the company, as consumers pelt the industry with more spam call complaints. View the full article

Adam Boyd, a veteran financial services executive with more than 25 years of experience, will head the growth of Rate's consumer lending platform. View the full article

Washington State charged Newrez after a consumer investigation, with the notice following recent enforcement action against Luminate Home Loans. View the full article

Mike Kortas will be adding a separate mortgage servicing company and hiring NEXA loan officers to assist with the process and give them customer insights. View the full article

San Francisco's median house price jumped to a record $2.15 million in March, up 18% from a year earlier as wealth generated by artificial intelligence startups flooded the city, according to brokerage Compass Inc. View the full article

The latest government-sponsored enterprise changes include a more flexible sampling and a longer maximum term for some manufactured housing loans, respectively. View the full article

The product preserves borrower's first mortgage, and its potentially lower mortgage rate, without requiring the new monthly payments of a traditional HELOC, FOA says. View the full article

Mortgage rates rising nearly 40 basis points from early-year lows have pushed some buyers out of the market, even as inventory and affordability remain better than a year ago, ICE Mortgage Technology found. View the full article

Losses stemming from the 2022 vintage have been offset by excess spread, while cure and roll rates signal caution. View the full article

Lawsuits and probes are ramping up, and some courts have broadened the lending law's statute of limitations, said Bradley Partner Jonathan Kolodziej. View the full article

New jobs in health care largely drove the gains, while the federal workforce and finance continued to shrink. View the full article

United Wholesale Mortgage lost ground to RKT in one category but held onto a healthy lead in another, an analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data shows. View the full article

Finance of America has not disclosed any incident, but a consumer filed an immediate lawsuit over a lone report of a ransomware gang's recent hack. View the full article

HECM endorsements rose 16% in March to 2,117 loans, but monthly volumes remain near their slowest pace since last summer as proprietary reverse products quietly steal market share. View the full article