Servicing

Nationwide Title Clearing announced recently that Greg McCoskey has been hired as the company's Lead General Counsel. McCoskey’s responsibilities will include working with the operations and management teams to provide counsel on corporate and litigation matters for NTC and to ensuring that NTC's customers remain insulated from statutory non-compliance risk for any operation outsourced to NTC.

As refinance activity declines and housing prices keep rising, lenders are clamoring to attract what few purchase buyers are still out there. But they’ll need to up their game in order to stand out from the pack. What’s the best way to do that? A new report released on Monday has the answer.

Home prices spiked again, according to the May 2017 Existing Home Sales Index. Total unsold inventory saw a slight uptick compared to April 2017, but is still relatively low, and median home prices are continuing to rise. Seasonally adjusted, there were 5.62 million existing homes for sale, a small increase from April 2017, but how long will this trend sustain itself?

As the mortgage industry attempted to digest the cumbersome alphabet soup of data standards and regulation, Fannie Mae innovated to deliver a recipe for certainty.

When it comes to homeownership, things can get confusing. It was recently reported that almost half of homebuyers were unable to answer questions about key mortgage qualification criteria and consumers are in agreement that homeownership education is helpful and should occur earlier in the process. So what needs to be done in order to educate while not delaying closing?

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.

LoanCare announced that Adam Saab has assumed the role of EVP and COO. Saab had previously held the position of SVP at PNC Mortgage where he was responsible for core servicing for all mortgage and consumer products for the bank, as well as for the home lending integration as PNC combined the mortgage and home equity products onto the Black Knight MSP platform.

Wells Fargo Home Lending announced that Liz Bryant will now lead the company’s retail sales organization reporting to Head of Mortgage Production, Michael DeVito.

Elm Street Technology (EST), who offers a portfolio of real estate technology and marketing services companies for agents, teams, and brokerages, recently announced the acquisition of Consolidated Knowledge, a technology platform provider to the residential real estate and multi-family industries. EST aims to offer a single technology solution for lead generation. The acquisition is the next step in EST’s ongoing efforts to consolidate the real estate industry’s leading technology and marketing service providers.

In a recent radio interview, HUD Secretary Ben Carson said that with “the right mindset,” many Americans using HUD’s low-income housing subsidies could overcome their struggles. Carson discussed topics of poverty, housing, and the government’s role in both, just days after President Trump’s 2018 budget blueprint was released. The plan cuts $6.2 billion from the HUD budget, ends the Community Development Block Grant program, and slashes funding for the department’s rental assistance program.