Tag Archives: Bank of America

In a survey of 1,500 consumers who purchased a home in the last 10 years, TD Bank found 69 percent would describe their experience with their lender as “excellent” or “very good." Rating specific aspects of their experience, accessibility” and “responsiveness” ranked highest, while relatively fewer respondents were happy with their lender’s efforts to explain options or help them understand the process.

The nation's second largest lender is reportedly cutting 450 jobs in its West Coast offices, according to Bloomberg. ""These notifications have been ongoing and reflect our previously announced efforts to reduce our size, resolve legacy issues and simplify our company,"" said Dan Frahm, a spokesman for Bank of America. The lender is still hiring in non-mortgage areas, and some employees will find jobs in other parts of the firm, he said.

For the entire year, industry numbers point to a total of $1.8 trillion in originations, well above what many analysts projected at the opening of the year. Given the current trend of declining mortgage rates and the Federal Housing Finance Agency's expected push to open credit availability at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, FBR Capital Markets says we might see originations in 2014 push to $1.3 trillion or higher, depending on how the next few months play out.

Bank of America recorded a respectable profit in last year's fourth quarter, due in part to recovering--albeit still struggling--real estate figures. BofA took in $3.4 billion in profits last quarter, beating out Q3's $2.5 billion net income and last year's $732 million. Putting a drag on Q4's profits was an estimated legal expense of $2.3 billion, which reflected ongoing exposures related to disputes over bad residential mortgage-backed securities.

As part of our look back on 2013, theMReport.com reviewed some of the biggest wheelers and dealers in the MSR world over the last year.

Joseph A. Smith, the monitor overseeing servicers' compliance with last year's National Mortgage Settlement, filed reports on how the institutions involved with the settlement are dealing with the agreement. "My testing confirmed six fails in the first quarter of 2013 and one in the second quarter of 2013," Smith said in a statement issued Wednesday, adding that the "banks are all taking action to address the failures through detailed corrective action plans."

Bank of America and Freddie Mac jointly announced Monday an agreement resolving all remaining rep and warranties claims on loans BofA sold to the GSE through the end of 2009.

According to Change Sciences' findings, mortgage sites as a whole are "less usable" than sites providing traditional e-commerce offerings, such as Amazon and Walmart. Compared to other financial sites, mortgage domains rank about average; they fall short when put against personal finance sites. "Many mortgage sites are missing an opportunity to establish a meaningful rapport with mortgage shoppers," Change Sciences said in its report.

Customer satisfaction with mortgage loan originators reached a seven-year high this year with Quicken Loans earning the highest ranking for the fourth year in a row, according to the J.D. Power 2013 U.S. Primary Mortgage Origination Satisfaction Study. Five originators earned scores above the industry average. Topping the list was Quicken Loans with a score of 841 out of 1000. The remaining four lenders to outrank the industry average are BB&T (798), U.S. Bank (783), PNC Mortgage (778), and Chase (773).

When it comes to next year's regulatory obstacles, CEOs and senior executives from the mortgage industry's biggest players agree on one thing: Education will be key to keeping business going. In a panel at the 2013 Realtors Conference and Expo, high-level names from Quicken Loans, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America discussed the qualified mortgage (QM) guidelines. While the initial implementation of these rules is expected to restrict lending in the short-term, panelists agreed that business should even out.