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- Cheddar Theft?
Cheddar Theft?
By Jeff Walton & Kelly Guest
Wisconsin, all 72 of its counties and the city of Milwaukee are being sued for home equity theft. The suit has the same basis as one from Minnesota that made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in which the high court found in favor of the former property owner. The “equity theft” refers to property that is seized to satisfy a tax debt, sold, and funds in excess of the debt are pocketed by the government. Though America’s Dairyland changed its law to prohibit government equity theft in 2022, this case reported by National Mortgage News is on behalf of people who lost homes and equity prior to.
Seems like industry-serving tech vendors are announcing new and upgraded AI features every week, but lenders and agents need to remember their place in the home buying, selling, and financing processes. In addition to J.D. Power’s findings that digital convenience is great, but humans are necessary, the CFA Institute published further details. When it comes to financial advice, 82% of Americans trust advice from humans, 14% found “robo-advice” to be equal, and a measly 4% said AI was better.
CHATTER
MBA Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni on Q1 GDP:
"Economic growth went negative in the first quarter as businesses rushed to import goods before tariffs went into effect. In addition to the pullback in activity, the inflation metrics increased relative to the prior quarter, so both growth and inflation were headed in the wrong direction.
“The quandary facing the Federal Reserve is that while the trend in the data is clearly showing a slowing economy, it also renewed upward pressure on inflation. We expect that the Fed will hold rates steady at its meeting next week and will indicate that it will continue to hold at this level until it becomes clear whether a recession or inflation is the bigger risk.”
UWM Partners with ICE to Bring Servicing In-house
Operating exclusively through the wholesale channel, UWM’s shift to in-house servicing will enable it to curate a homeowner experience that yields increased recapture and referral business for its mortgage broker network.
Freddie Mac Q125: Net Income of $2.8 Billion
Financed 313,000 homes and rental units
Financed 224,000 mortgages, with 51% of eligible loans affordable to LMI families
52% of new SF home purchase loans were to first-time home buyers
Financed 89,000 rental units, with 92% of eligible units affordable to low- to moderate-income families
Fannie Mae Q125: Net Income $3.7B
Net worth reaching$98.3 billion as of 3-31-25
$76 billion in liquidity provided in Q12525, which enabled the financing of approximately 287,000 home purchases, refinancings, and rental units
Acquired approximately 144,000 single-family purchase loans, of which approximately half were for first-time homebuyers, and approximately 50,000 single-family refinance loans during the first
quarter of 2025
Financed approximately 93,000 units of multifamily rental housing in Q125; a significant majority were affordable to households earning at or below 120% of area median income
Rithm Capital Q1 Earnings
GAAP net income of $36.5 million, or $0.07 per diluted common share(1)
Earnings available for distribution of $275.3 million, or $0.52 per diluted common share
Newrez (Rithm Capital’s multichannel mortgage origination and servicing platform)posted pre-tax income of $270.1 million in Q1’25, excluding the MSR mark-to-market loss and related hedge impact of $(180.1) million, down from $280.2 million in Q4’24, excluding the MSR mark-to-market gain and related hedge impact of $204.5 million.
Newrez generated a 19% pre-tax return on equity (“ROE”) on $5.5 billion of equity(3)(4). Total servicing UPB reached $845 billion, an increase of 30% YoY, which includes $254 billion UPB of third-party servicing, an increase of 110% YoY.
Origination funded production volume was $11.8 billion in Q1’25, an increase of 9% YoY.
Could Be a Juicy Suit: Two Canned NCUA Members Sue Trump (NMN)
Two former Democratic members of the National Credit Union Administration are suing senior leaders of the Trump administration after they were fired by President Donald Trump in April, a suit whose outcome could have implications for removal protections at other independent agency boards, including the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
HW on VASP Shutdown: National Consumer Law Center has Dire Warning
The Veteran Affairs Servicing Purchase (VASP) program — which attempts to prevent foreclosure actions against military members who may be experiencing financial hardship due to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic — is officially over as of Thursday.
Director Doug Collins began moving to end the program as of May 1, following through on prior criticism from Republican lawmakers that had previously accused the program of being “created for political purposes by the Biden-Harris administration to undercut the VA Home Loan program.”
3 Points From an NBA Team Owner: Mat Ishbia's 3 Points for May
The UWM CEO opines, puts his bet on lower interest rates around the corner, affordability improving this year – along with massive increases in originations. We’ll see if he sinks any of these shots.
LLPA Liability: NMN Reports on CFPB Working Paper Finding Adjustments Hurt Originations
Policies put in place to spur lending for first-time primary home buyers in markets heavily populated by second homes failed to work as intended, according to a new working paper from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
But the increase put in place in 2022 that raised the up-front fees on loans on vacation homes guaranteed by the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) did make it more expensive for those borrowers — to the tune of $1,260 on average every year for the typical loan, the paper found.
And as a result, there was a “substantial” 23% decline in GSE originations for second residences with high loan-to-value ratios.
In counties where holiday homes accounted for a third or all sales, the paper’s authors — Zachary Blizard, Thomas S. Conkling, and Georgia Ronis von Helms — estimate that the policy change reduced overall mortgage lending by roughly 5% with a “very small” offsetting increase in primary home lending.
Accelerating Appraisals: Software Company Aivre Claims it Helps Appraisers Double Daily Output
From photographs of the subject property, the technology extracts and classifies key property characteristics. It also generates condition and quality scores for the subject property as well as comparable ones, and auto-populates GSE-compliant forms — all without manually inputting or verifying the data.
Faster Foreclosures? Sagent Launches “Dara Attorney Portal”
The mortgage servicing technology solution company announced the launch of its Dara Attorney Portal to enhance efficiency between servicers and their attorney partners.
MOVING & SHAKING
MBA announced that John Lammle has joined the association as Associate Vice President of Commercial Real Estate Finance (CREF).
Kind Lending hired Jennifer Folk as COO.
Rate hired Torrey Jacoby as VP of Mortgage in Houston, TX.
SWBC Mortgage hired Steve Remington as COO.
Executive Changes at Home Services of America: CFO Alex Seavall has been promoted to Chief Financial and Operations Officer, Candace Adams has been named Executive Vice President and Brenda Maher has been appointed President of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England and New York Properties.
NMP reports that Christian Hartung joined Select Lending Services as Divisional Sales Executive.
MARKET/INDUSTRY
Mortgage Rates Continue To Decline: Freddie 5-1-25, Mortgage Applications Decreased 4.2% From One Week Earlier: MBA Weekly Survey for the week ending 4-25-25. In his latest Master the Markets segment, Bill Bodnar warns to watch those Treasury auctions and notes the solid, but not inflationary jobs report. The good news for the industry is that jobs buy homes.
Perky Pendings: NAR March PHS
Pending home sales in March leapt 6.1%.
Compared to one month ago, pending home sales declined in the Northeast, while the Midwest, West – and especially the South – underwent increases.
Year-over-year, contract signings rose in the Midwest. However, the Northeast, South and West declined – with the biggest drop in the Northeast.
"Home buyers are acutely sensitive to even minor fluctuations in mortgage rates. While contract signings are not a guarantee of eventual closings, the solid rise in pending home sales implies a sizable build-up of potential home buyers, fueled by ongoing job growth." - NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.
Best Day Ever? ATTOM Data’s Annual Analysis of Best Days to Sell a Home
Based on home sales over the past 10 years, the months of May, February and April offer the highest seller premiums – making this month the time to sell your home.
Seller premiums for each month of the year according to ATTOM:
May 9.5% | February 9.4% | April 9.1% | June 9% | March 8.8% | January 7.8% |
July 7.4% | August 7.3% | December 7.2% | September 6.9% | October 6.6% | November 6.4% |
To calculate the premium or discount paid on a given day, ATTOM compared the median sales price for homes with a purchase closing on that day with the median automated valuation model (AVM) for those same homes at the time of sale.