Mortgage – HousingWire |
- Johnson, Brummer appointed to Fannie Mae board
- Alex Kutsishin to speak at Spring Summit
- Rocket Mortgage stock surges thanks to Wall Street Bets
- Rocket Mortgage unveils new jumbo product for brokers
| Johnson, Brummer appointed to Fannie Mae board Posted: 02 Mar 2021 02:43 PM PST Fannie Mae announced today the appointment of Simon Johnson and Christopher Brummer to its board of directors, as well as the extension of Robert Hertz’s board term for another three years. Fannie CEO Hugh Frater said Johnson and Brummer bring “deep economic, regulatory, and business expertise,” and Board Chairwoman Sheila Bair said the duo are “proven public policy leaders.” The news of Johnson and Brummer’s appointment comes one day after Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Mark Calabria announced the disbursement of $1.09 billion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's affordable housing allocations. It’s the largest amount ever disbursed by the government sponsored enterprises, and more than double what was provided the prior year. Fannie Mae's full year net revenues increased 16% to $25.3 billion largely on the back of record acquisition volumes, while Freddie Mac recorded a net revenue increase of 18% to $16.7 billion. Fannie Mae reported $138,558 in new business acquisitions in January 2021 – up robustly from January 2019, when it reported only $62,449. Fannie Mae also issued resecuritizations backed by $11.9 billion in Freddie Mac securities. Johnson, an economist, is the co-founder of Baselinescenario.com and heads several departments at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He’s also a research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private nonpartisan organization that facilitates investigation and analysis of economic issues. Johnson wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post several years ago called “Mortgage Mavens,” where he discussed the impact of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae on the 2015 housing economy. He was also a Bloomberg News columnist. Brummer, a law professor at Georgetown, served as a member of the Biden-Harris presidential transition team. He is the current faculty director of the Institute of International Economic Law, and a nonresident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council's GeoEconomics Center. He’s also as a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's subcommittee on virtual currencies. Hertz is on the board of directors at both Morgan Stanley and Workiva Inc. He also serves as chair of the Audit Committee, the vice chair of the Compensation Committee, and as a member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. The post Johnson, Brummer appointed to Fannie Mae board appeared first on HousingWire.  |
| Alex Kutsishin to speak at Spring Summit Posted: 02 Mar 2021 02:19 PM PST Alex Kutsishin, CEO & co-founder of Sales Boomerang, will speak at HousingWire’s virtual Spring Summit on March 4, diving into what a two-year study reveals about the importance of borrower retention. To protect business in a competitive market, industry leaders need a 360-degree, real-time view of customers' changing circumstances, so lenders can identify opportunities the moment they arise. Kutsishin will outline a borrower retention game plan designed to ensure every borrower has the right loan, right now. Plus, he’ll give a sneak peek at bleeding-edge innovations in borrower intelligence. A serial entrepreneur, Kutsishin is a HousingWire Tech Trendsetter whose company’s first-of-its-kind borrower intelligence software has helped lenders turn overlooked opportunities into billions of dollars in additional loan revenue. He’s also famous for going all-out as a speaker, whether on a live or virtual stage, and has promised to bring his A game to the summit. The focus of the Spring Summit is The Year-Round Purchase Market. Record low rates led to a banner year for mortgage lenders in 2020, but as rates rise, real estate agents and lenders will have to adapt to accommodate the demographic tsunami of Millennial homebuyers looking to enter the market. The summit will covers topics that are critical to success in another unprecedented year, including:
The summit also features sessions on mortgage disruption, lessons from local markets and more. As with all HousingWire events, we're bringing together some of the brightest and most successful people in mortgage, real estate, compliance, technology and regulation to offer their insights on what's happening right now and what's coming next. Speakers joining Kutsishin include UWM CEO Mat Ishbia, Figure Technologies CEO and co-founder Mike Cagney, MBA's Lisa Haynes, Blend CEO Nima Ghamsari, Mortgage Champions CEO Dale Vermillion and many more. The 2021 Spring Summit is designed for our HW+ premium members, who get access to all HousingWire virtual events, long-form digital content published weekly, an exclusive Slack community and more. Sign up for HW+ membership and register for the summit here, or get event-only access for your company or team here. The post Alex Kutsishin to speak at Spring Summit appeared first on HousingWire.  |
| Rocket Mortgage stock surges thanks to Wall Street Bets Posted: 02 Mar 2021 01:07 PM PST Rocket Companies Chairman Dan Gilbert may want to gift some karma to users of the infamous subreddit Wall Street Bets. His company’s stock soared 71% on Tuesday after the day traders at the subreddit took interest in the mortgage lender’s stock, which had been hovering around the $20 mark for much of the past three months. Nearly 40% of the company’s available shares are sold short, according to Market Beat, and it’s one of the most shorted companies by hedge funds on Wall Street. The stock rose as high as $43 on Tuesday and closed at $41.60. Rocket Mortgage bears little resemblance to the companies Reddit day traders had previously targeted, such as Gamestop. Unlike Gamestop, the lender is highly profitable. In 2020, the mortgage lender originated about $320 billion worth of mortgages, and pulled in $9.5 billion in earnings. It is easily the largest lender in America, and certainly the best well known, having spent billions on marketing. Still, investors haven’t been terribly enthused with the Detroit-based lender for most of its time as a publicly traded company. Though it traded at a premium over most mortgage competitors – and at one time traded around $34 a share – up until this week, Rocket’s stock barely nudged above its debut price in August of $18. The largest institutional shareholders include Invesco, Vanguard funds and Blackrock. Gilbert and his employees own 94% of the company, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Beyond the standard refrain that mortgage is a highly cyclical industry that depends hugely on interest rates, analysts on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call pointed to the company’s shrinking margins and dependence on refinance business as reasons for caution. Rocket, which was founded in 1985, has shown resiliency. While it’s gain-on-sale margin slipped to 4.41% in the fourth quarter from 4.52% in the third quarter, that’s still a much shallower drop than its competitors. The company’s projection of between $98 billion to $103 billion in originations for the first quarter of 2021, and gain on sale margins of between 3.6% to 3.9% would still be better than most of its competitors. Rocket also announced during its earnings call that it had struck a partnership with Morgan Stanley and E-Trade to originate and service conventional mortgages for their millions of clients, which could significantly boost its purchase business. Given the uptick in interest rates of late, investors will likely be pleased to hear of new pipelines to capture purchase business. At its quarterly earnings call, Rocket said its board of directors approved a significant special dividend of $1.11 per share for shareholders. The post Rocket Mortgage stock surges thanks to Wall Street Bets appeared first on HousingWire.  |
| Rocket Mortgage unveils new jumbo product for brokers Posted: 02 Mar 2021 10:16 AM PST Rocket Mortgage is making a big play for the legion of self-employed borrowers who have been frustrated by a lack of mortgage options and overwhelming red tape: a new jumbo mortgage product offered through its Rocket Pro TPO channel. The new product launch comes just a few months after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau retired the much-maligned Appendix Q patch, and amid a wave of vaccinations for the COVID-19 virus, which should boost the bottom lines of small businesses. Effective Tuesday, Rocket Pro TPO broker partners can offer their clients a new jumbo product, called “Jumbo Smart.” “So, the beautiful thing about this product is it mirrors DU [desktop underwriter] guidelines and requirements with just a few small overlays,” Rocket Pro TPO Vice President Austin Niemiec said in a video addressed to brokers. “So we run this through DU, giving you instant findings and approval.” Niemiec said the new product would allow significantly more borrowers to qualify than a typical jumbo, and noted that loans go up to $2 million amounts. Borrowers can use them for primary homes, secondary homes and investment properties. Should lenders look to non-QM when the refi boom slows? HousingWire recently sat down with Tom Hutchens, Angel Oak EVP of production, who shared how non-QM lending could be an effective way for lenders to replace lost business in the event of a refi boom slowdown. Presented by: Angel Oak“You can also go all the way up to 45% DTI and 80% LTV, so the buckets are wide here,” he said in the video to brokers. Rocket Mortgage claims the pricing is more competitive than the typical jumbo, which as of Feb. 28 averaged about 3.32% for a 30-year fixed-rate product. “Take advantage of this product: we’re rolling it out right before purchase season, so you can differentiate yourself with purchase clients and agents,” Niemiec told brokers. “And also, as you know, jumbo refi clients have been sitting on the fence, not taking advantage of the low rates because of the red tape and the limited jumbo products. So go help those borrowers and win more business.” The self-employed borrower has been in a bind since the pandemic began. Many small business owners have needed a year-to-date profit-and-loss supported by at least three months of business bank statements to obtain a mortgage. A year ago, a profit and loss from the client to the most recent quarter would have sufficed, several brokers and retail LOs told HousingWire. It’s onerous. “It's never been harder in my 30 years in the business to do a loan for self employed,” one LO told HousingWire in late January. “With the volume of loans I am handling, I hate doing loans for self employed right now as they take so much time, so doc heavy.” The LO told HousingWire the experience for borrowers is “worse than getting a colonoscopy.” Rocket Mortgage is hardly alone in recognizing that self-employed borrowers represent a good business opportunity. Its rival United Wholesale Mortgage has pledged to come out with a new jumbo product this quarter, and several non-QM specialists have been very active in the space over the last few months. Even some depository banks, which tightened lending standards during the pandemic, have indicated that they have or will soon loosen underwriting requirements to capture the rise in purchase business in the non-conforming space. The post Rocket Mortgage unveils new jumbo product for brokers appeared first on HousingWire.  |
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