News

Days after announcing the addition of Brandon Goldstein as managing director of capital markets, Valuation Vision (V2) recruited Loretta Zeballos as VP of business development and customer relations.

The Census and HUD announced jointly Wednesday that housing starts in January ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 880,000, a 16 percent decline from December. The drop in starts came during a month in which homebuilder confidence in the single-family market (as measured by the National Association of Home Builders) measured at an index value of 57, reflecting general optimism.

After seeing their first notable drop of the year in February’s first week, mortgage applications continued to slide down a slipperier slope approaching the middle of the month, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported. According to MBA’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey, loan application volume dropped 4.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending February 14. Unadjusted, the index was down a smaller 2 percent.

As the year kicks off to a mediocre start for housing, two camps have emerged: those who say trends indicate a sour turn for the market, and those who are more apt to dismiss the worst news as an effect of the last few months’ harsh weather. With major reports on construction and sales data on the way, Trulia chief economist Jed Kolko looked at historical patterns to determine—how much has the weather really influenced housing numbers?

Wells Fargo is reportedly looking to return to the subprime market by bringing in customers with credit scores as low as 600, according to Reuters. Lenders venturing back into the high-risk loans market are even using a subtle marketing trick to assuage fear and spur demand—subprime loans become "another chance mortgages" or "alternative mortgages," shedding the stigmatized "subprime" label, the report says.

Home prices nationally rose at a seasonally unadjusted rate of 0.3 percent in December, continuing the pace slow, steady monthly gains that started in September, FNC reported in its latest Residential Price Index (RPI). While slightly down from November’s 0.4 percent rate of growth, December’s price gains reflect greater stability in the non-distressed market, FNC says.

Noting that interest rates have spent most of the last two months on a downward slope (despite actions from the Federal Reserve to bring down asset purchases), Freddie Mac’s chief economist, Frank Nothaft, says the refinance segment of the market may be getting its second wind, thus giving a lift to overall applications activity.

In Illinois, the LOGS Network named Adam Hansen as its new chief information officer (CIO). Hansen is a veteran technology executive, boasting more than two decades of experience leading complex technology organizations, much of which was spent in the legal services arena. Most notably, he has extensive experience leading technology strategies related to law firm mergers and acquisitions, strategic realignment and execution, technology transformation projects, and enterprise risk management efforts.

The National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) Housing Market Index (HMI), released in partnership with Wells Fargo, posted a 10-point decline to 46 in the group’s latest report. It was the first time since May 2013 that the index measured below 50, the “neutral” point between a market viewed as “good” or “bad.” All four regions reported declines in confidence, with losses ranging from seven points in the South to 14 points in the West.

Although the new qualified mortgage (QM) rules are expected to bring stability to loan manufacturing, the many nuances of compliance have resulted in doubling the cost of loan origination. This assessment was offered by Tom Showalter, chief analytics officer at Digital Risk. In an interview on Mortgage Markets Today, Showalter explained the threat of ""manufacturing risk,"" or the risk that key elements of data defining the loan are either corrupted or misrepresented.