Move over Trulia, Redfin, Zillow, and Realtor.com. There’s a new listing site in town. Facebook, the world’s largest social interaction site is jumping into the rental housing listing business. Facebook is seriously expanding their real estate section of their Marketplace teaming up with Zumper and Apartment List.com to list available rental units there. This is their challenge to existing sites…
Category: Mortgage Industry Trends
Cordray Out! Who’s Next?
As you probably know by now, Richard Cordray resigned as the inaugural Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). With that, President Trump wasted little time in appointing his White House Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney, to replace Mr. Cordray. “Not so fast,” says Leandra English. Who? She was Director Cordray’s Chief of Staff. When Cordray decided to resign, he…
Reversing the Trend on Reverse Mortgages
Don’t look now, but with home values on the rise so is home equity. That means that homeowners may have a little more available cash built up in their home. This is cash that can be used for a myriad of reasons; from paying off existing high credit card debts to helping their kids and grandchildren pay off some of…
Will Tax Reform Affect the Housing Market?
Will we see any meaningful tax reform any time soon? Maybe, but what impact might it have on the housing market and our economy? Everybody seems to have their opinions. What’s yours? The problem as I see it is that the Republicans are working on tax reform to provide corporations and the so-called ‘middle class’ with some tax breaks. As…
They Feel The Need for Speed
Do you remember, the line from Top Gun when Maverick turned to Goose and says, “I feel the need, the need for speed!” It seems consumers may be feeling that way about the digital mortgage process. According to a recent J.D. Powers survey, 43% of all mortgage applications were done online. This was up from 28% a year ago; making…
InfoSec – The New Buzzword. Do You Have It?
With the recent hacks of Equifax, Google, Target, and other major companies, everyone is becoming much more concerned about information security (InfoSec). It’s no different in mortgage lending. Lenders need to protect the vast amounts of a consumer’s non-public personal information (NPPI) that they collect during a loan process. It’s not easy when so much of the lending process is…