Headlines

International Document Services, Inc., a Mortgage document preparation vendor, announced it has incorporated a new document preview feature into its integration with LendingQB’s cloud-based loan origination solution. The feature allows LendingQB users to preview mortgage documents, such as the Loan Estimate or Closing Disclosure, before they are submitted to fulfillment. This enables lenders to spot and correct errors before the creation of the final document.

Nationwide Title Clearing announced that Dave LaRose will volunteer to support the Mortgage Bankers Association's Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization as it works to create a mortgage industry Business Glossary. MISMO announced plans to create the glossary earlier this year and called for industry volunteers to support the effort.

ClosingCorp announced the release of SmartEngine which will help title companies centralize data processing and connect their rate and fee data to any third-party system, including title production systems, websites and ClosingCorp’s SmartFees, and SmartCalc products to reliably exchange information to produce estimates.

The National Mortgage Servicing Association (NMSA) announced the appointment of Jim Taylor, SVP of Property Preservation with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Asset Management, to lead the organization’s effort to mitigate the threat that vacant and abandoned properties pose to homeowners and communities. Taylor, a 30-year industry veteran, leads asset management and preservation of Wells Fargo’s residential servicing portfolio while caring for the interests of the communities it serves. He earned his M.S. in Management from Purdue University concurrently with an MBA from Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Rouen, and a B.S. from the University of Washington.

The U.S. Treasury Department could finally be getting a new Deputy Secretary in the near future according to three sources inside the department. Brian Brooks, General Counsel, EVP, and Corporate Secretary for Fannie Mae, is said to be filling the position. Goldman Sachs Executive Jim Donovan was previous in line for the vacancy, but recently withdrew.

Federal Open Market Committee is set to finish its June meeting on Wednesday and it is widely expected that they will raise interest rates in order to keep the economy stabilized, even though inflation remains around 2 percent. In May, when they last met, members of the board chose to keep interest rates at their current level. Will this mean anything for mortgage interest rates? One expert believes it might not impact the mortgage market at all.

On Tuesday the May Quicken Loans National Home Price Perception Index and National Home Value Index was released, showing that while home prices continue to rise, they are not rising as fast as homeowners expect. There are, however, cities, such as Denver, Dallas, and Seattle, where appraisals are higher than what homeowners expect. Philadelphia, Baltimore and Chicago had the largest disparity between appraisals and homeowner expectations.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday in a unanimous decision that the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act did not extend its reach to entities that purchase defaulted loans on the secondary market. The petitioners brought their case in front of the Supreme Court in an appeal of the 4th Circuit Court ruling in favor of the respondent. Justice Neil Gorsuch delivered his first opinion since his conferral to the Court.

Without swift intervention, millennials could become “a lost generation of homeownership,” according to Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In his opening remarks at the National Housing Symposium in Washington, D.C. on Friday, Carson called homeownership a “lost dream” for many millennials—even ones who are credit-worthy. Current and upcoming efforts by the FHA and Fannie Mae will likely open more doors for millennial buyers, Carson said.

Today’s ever-increasing home prices have made their mark: Buying a home is now unaffordable in more than half of the nation’s biggest markets. And in California? The straits are even more dire. According new analysis, the median price of homes for sale is historically higher than average in the majority of America’s largest metros, meaning buyers need to devote a larger-than-expected share of income toward mortgage payments and, more significantly, down payments.