Author: PROGRESS In Lending

Summit Funding, Inc., a privately held nationwide mortgage banker and servicer, has expanded its East Coast footprint by hiring three former leaders from Movement Mortgage. As divisional leaders based in North Carolina, Deran Pennington, Chris Shelton and Matt Schoolfield bring more than half a century of experience recruiting and building highly successful mortgage sales teams.

Delinquency rates for mortgages backed by commercial and multifamily properties increased slightly during the second quarter of 2023, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest commercial real estate finance (CREF) Loan Performance Survey.

Mortgage applications increased 1.1 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 14, 2023. Last week’s results included an adjustment for Independence Day.

Insellerate, a provider of Modern CRM and Marketing Automation solutions to the mortgage lending and real estate industries, has launched an AI plugin designed to transform email marketing strategies for mortgage professionals. With this new integration, users can access advanced functionality powered by ChatGPT, enabling effortless content creation, enhanced grammar correction, and expert-level tone adjustments within their current email editor.

BlackFin Group is an umbrella of services and software products that specializes in the financial services industry. BlackFin caters to national, regional, and community-banks, credit unions, and independent mortgage bankers looking for trusted consulting experts, services, and insights. The firm has noticed that many mortgage lenders and servicers are making significant technology changes. Here’s what they report:

The MBA Opens Doors Foundation (Opens Doors) raised $234,536 at its Annual Charity Wine Auction held during MBA’s June Chairman’s Conference in Manalapan, Florida. The funds raised will support the Foundation’s mission of providing mortgage and rental assistance grants to families with critically ill or injured children, allowing parents and guardians to be by a child’s side during treatment without fear of losing their home.

Bob Broeksmit, CMB, President and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), issued a statement in response to the release by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of audit reports examining the loss mitigation options that loan servicers provided to borrowers with Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans after their COVID-19 forbearance ended. He said:

New American Funding (NAF), a leading independent mortgage lender and servicer, has replaced its proprietary customer relationship management system with Bonzo’s platform. New American Funding CEO Rick Arvielo called Bonzo “just the best [CRM] I have ever seen” and said he’d jump at the chance to invest in the company.

New insights from iEmergent report that the COVID housing boom of 2020-2021 was characterized by very strong demand and limited housing supply. Not surprisingly, those conditions resulted in rapid home price acceleration. Young potential homebuyers — primarily from the Millennial generation and those saddled with student debt levels unmatched by previous generations — were certainly challenged by the low-supply / rising-price environment. How did this group fare during this home sales boom?

BlackFin Group, a management consulting firm serving the Banking and Mortgage Industries, has appointed Christopher Call as Principal Consultant to run the BlackFin Group Professional Services team.