House Flipping Is Back to Pre-Crisis Levels according to NY Times

An article just published by the New York Times trumpets the news that house flipping is popular again. Those of us who have been in the mortgage industry for the past 10-15 years know that low interest rates and loose credit standards combined with property flipping fever drove much of the housing bubble in 2003-2008. […]

Protecting Borrower Data in An Age of Hacking and Phishing Schemes

“Data privacy” and “data security” are terms most lenders are hearing over and over again these days. The reasons for this are numerous but include federal and state regulator focus on the issue, increased publicity over wire fraud and data storage breaches in business and industry, and heightened concern by consumers about how their sensitive […]

CFPB: No More Regulation by Enforcement? An Analysis

According to Mortgage Professional America, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney, recently told industry leaders that the CFPB will no longer practice “regulation by enforcement.” “The regulation by enforcement answer is really simple – we aren’t doing it anymore,” Mulvaney said. “It’s a fairness issue. If you’ve done something for […]

Data Breaches from Email Phishing Scams Still Rocking Mortgage Industry: WEI Mortgage latest victim.

Just today the industry learned that WEI Mortgage has discovered a data breach from an email phishing scam last Fall that appears to have exposed loan file information and borrower personal identifying data such as Social Security numbers to outside parties. Back in October 2016 I wrote that Wells Fargo Bank and the Federal Bureau […]

Why Settlement Agents Pose the Greatest Risk to Mortgage Lenders and Borrowers

Settlement agents, the men and women who manage the closing of residential mortgage loans, carry a great burden with them. Each time they close a loan they have access to mortgage proceeds, lender documents including the important collateral security instruments (note and mortgage) and borrower personal and financial information (in the final 1003 and other […]

Enterprise Risk Management: What’s in Your MROM?

Increasing regulatory pressures on banks and lenders to adopt greater risk management systems and processes are aimed at establishing a more uniform approach to quality control industry-wide. At the same time these pressures seek to protect consumers from the type of non-managed business decisions that were at the root of the financial industry collapse several […]