Government

The fourth volume of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's monthly complaint snapshot released Tuesday focused on one of its top three most complained-about financial product: mortgages.

Americans appear to be purchasing more homes as the U.S. homeownership rate has finally moved upward for the first time in two years in the third quarter of 2015, following a 48-year low hit the previous quarter, the Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau announced Tuesday.

HUD Secretary Julián Castro, whose name has been bantered for months as a possible vice presidential candidate, joined Realtor.com Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke in a conversation Monday evening about millennial housing held at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. In the conversation, Secretary Castro and Smoke addressed a number of questions surrounding America's most talked about generation and how they are faring the housing market amid numerous regulatory changes.

In 2014, the market share of independent mortgage companies rose to 47 percent for home purchase loans and 42 percent for refinance loans, the highest those shares have been at any point in the last 20 years, meaning nonbank mortgage companies have more than regained their market share they lost due to the Great Recession.

New single-family home sales in September 2015 fell dramatically to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 468,000, down 11.5 percent from the revised August rate of 529,000, according to estimates released jointly Monday by the U.S. Census Bureau and HUD.

Pavaso Inc., recently announced the completion of its pioneering end-to-end digital process for the mortgage/real estate industry with the addition of its sales contract negotiation tool for real estate agents.

Parkside Lending, a national wholesale and correspondent lender, recently announced its insurance subsidiary PSL Insurance Company, LLC has been approved to become a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati.

The traditional mortgage lending days are nearly over. Technology is taking the industry by storm with new innovations that are moving mortgage lending closer to a completely online process.

As consumers purchase more homes, remain current on mortgage payments thanks to low rates, and employment continues to grow, the housing market continues to show improvement.

Members of the National Appraisal Congress, a Five Star Institute Membership Group that advocates and develops sustainable solutions for the residential valuations industry, recently met with members of Congress and appraisal regulators to deliver a comprehensive solution for training the next generation of appraisers while removing existing inefficiencies from the process.