StreamLoan's Blog

Building a feature is interesting. 

The world changed in 90 days.  We went from roaming freely, looking at open houses, walking into our local branch for a mortgage, and many other all-so-routine activities.  Then all the sudden it changed.  Work from home.  School from home.  However, our businesses and work must continue.  Luckily, we have technology that can help us adapt.  Here are 5 trends we have seen with our mortgage lending clients:

Commercial banks are still in trouble. Regulators were initially spurred into action by accusations that six large commercial banks had been hastily processing foreclosures as the housing market collapsed in 2008, using a process known as robosigning that often meant the banks did not adequately check on the accuracy of the documentation. This caused four million homeowners to face foreclosures, and a $10 billion settlement was agreed upon in 2013. 

JPMorgan Chase recently was told to pay an additional $48 million to settle remaining issues stemming from missteps in its handling of mortgage servicing accounts after the crisis. The bank already paid $2 billion in a 2013 settlement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), but it did not satisfy all the obligations of that earlier settlement. (source: http://nyti.ms/1Wf5BOF)

The last few years have offered an extremely friendly interest rate environment.  This has encouraged purchasing, refinancing, and more real estate activity.  As of late, we have seen the Fed nudge rates higher, which was inevitable at some point, and likely a good thing in the long run.  Even with this shift, in rates, new financial opportunities on on the doorstep for homeowners - and for those lenders offering deals to these homeowners.  What I found interesting  is that roughly half of the tappable equity belongs to borrowers whose first-lien mortgages have current interest rates higher than today’s 30-year rate – making them potential candidates for cash-out refis.  This translates to trillions of dollars in equity that can (and will be) tapped.  Meanwhile, the other half of tappable equity belongs to borrowers whose first-lien mortgages have current interest rates under 4%. What is shocking, is that 23% of cash-out refi borrowers this last year refinanced into higher base mortgage rate to take advantage of cashing out.  This strategy can make sense if there is debt consolidation or some other financial goal to reduce the blended rate of other debt at these lower rates.  Just be careful about the rate adjustments on any floating or adjustable rate loan products - that can bite!  (source: http://bit.ly/1nfZOfT)  We know the pain of shopping for a mortgage product and doing all the paperwork required to get a refinance or HELOC deal done - we are here at StreamLoan to help - and make this process simple for both the lending team and customers.   Visit us at www.streamloan.io for more information - and as always, feel free to reach out to us directly.  We welcome discussions.