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.
Read More »Commercial Real Estate on Track for Moderate 2014 Growth
Commercial real estate (CRE) patterns are expected to continue on a steady but modest growth path, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) predicted Friday in its quarterly CRE forecast. "Jobs are the key driver for commercial real estate, and the accumulation of 7 million net new jobs from the row point a few years ago is steadily showing up as demand for leasing and purchases of properties," said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun. However, Yun said, "the difficulty of accessing loans remains a hindrance to a faster recovery."
Read More »Ongoing Uncertainty to Unsettle Markets Going into 2014
With the federal government shutdown and debt ceiling negotiations still fresh in the nation's collective mind, Fannie Mae expects "continued market volatility" heading into the start of 2014.
Read More »LoanLogics Unveils MERS Monitoring and Review Service
LoanLogics, a leader in loan quality management and performance analytics, announced the unveiling of its MERS Independent Third Party Performance Monitoring and Annual Review service. The specialty audit practice reviews and tests MERS controls and processes so servicers can ensure they are compliant with MERS regulations and avoid scrutiny.
Read More »Marketing Compliance Expert Joins Lenders Compliance Group
Lenders Compliance Group Inc. (LCG) announced the appointment of Michael J. Wallace Esq. to the position of director of marketing compliance.
Read More »Buyer Competition Undeterred by October Shutdown
Despite a softening market, competition among buyers remained fairly fierce in October, Redfin reported in its Real-Time Bidding Wars release for the month. Last month, 55.9 percent of offers written by the brokerage's agents faced competition from other buyers, a decline from 58.3 percent in September. Bidding wars have been on a downward slope since peaking at 79 percent in February. Even with the decline, though, competition last month was higher than expected, given the effects of the government shutdown on consumer confidence.
Read More »The Bright Side of Tight Credit
Though tightened underwriting standards have been partly to blame for why housing isn't recovering faster, CoreLogic's Sam Khater says the silver lining is that loan performance has improved greatly. "While there has been much consternation about underwriting being too tight in the context of forthcoming mortgage regulations, one underappreciated outcome has been the very good performance of mortgages during the last few years," Khater said in an article in CoreLogic's most recent Marketpulse report.
Read More »October Purchase Loan Share Crosses 60% Line
According to Ellie Mae's data, which draws from a sampling of the loan applications flowing through the company's network, purchase loan share was 61 percent in October.
Read More »Is Negative Equity Part of the New Normal?
In the third quarter, 1.4 million homeowners rose to the surface as their home values once again outranked their equity, according to the Zillow Negative Equity Report.
Read More »LRES Approved to Transact Business in Virgin Islands
LRES, a California-based company specializing in commercial and residential valuations and asset management, announced it has received a Certificate of Authority to conduct business in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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