Tennessee-based community bank Patriot Bank agreed to pay $1.9 million to resolve allegations from the Department of Justice (DOJ) that it engaged in redlining discriminatory practices.The DOJ alleged that from 2015 through at least 2020, Patriot avoided providing mortgage services to majority-Black

Today, we saw existing home sales slip a bit month to month, which isn’t surprising to me as purchase application data started its positive run in November. That data line typically looks out 30-90 days for sales — it doesn’t move as fast as some people think. Since making some holiday adjustments,

Real estate professionals in California are facing yet another commission lawsuit. Filed on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento by Willsim Latham, LLC., the copycat suit alleges that real estate industry players have colluded to artificially inflate real estate agent commissions.The lawsui

No set path exists for any professional to enter the reverse mortgage industry. People often find themselves in the business from various other professions. It’s the case for Finance of America Companies  (FOA) Chief Marketing Officer Chris Moschner.Arriving at FOA following its acquisition of Ameri

Fannie Mae has a rosy outlook for mortgage rates. The government sponsored enterprise is projecting that rates will drop below 6% by the end of 2024, which in turn will boost refi volumes and help thaw the existing home sales market. Following years of volatility in mortgage rates, the housing marke

The rash of recent mortgage and title industry data breaches serves as a sobering reminder of the paramount importance of cybersecurity. In this first installment of our reducing cyber risk series, let’s explore a crucial facet of cybersecurity: bolstering resilience in your critical systems and ser

Japanese homebuilder Sekisui House, Ltd. has struck a deal to acquire its U.S.-based peer M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. in an all-cash transaction that values the target at $4.9 billion, the companies announced Thursday. The acquisition turns Sekisui into the fifth largest homebuilder in the U.S as it expan

Closing software provider Qualia is accusing a former employee and startup title production software firm Settlor of stealing trade secrets.In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Denver, Qualia claims that its former senior manager of product at Resware Krista Myers, who is now a pr

The city of Laguna Beach, Calif. recently offered details of its city-sponsored aging-in-place program, dubbed “Lifelong Laguna,” in a profile published by CNBC. It provides new insight into the measures cities can explore to more easily facilitate aging-in-place goals for older residents.2021 resea

Wire and title fraud risk reached an all all-time high in Q4 2023 with 51.8% of transactions having issues that led to a risk of wire and title fraud, according to FundingShield‘s quarterly report.On average, problematic loans had 2.2 issues per loan indicating the lack of appropriate controls by cl

Ted Tozer, former president of Ginnie Mae during the Obama administration and current president Alanna McCargo’s most recent Senate-confirmed predecessor, applauded the news that the company is looking into the development of a new Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM)-backed Security (HMBS) produc

Dark Matter Technologies, formerly Black Knight Origination Technologies, is gearing up to bring more lenders on to use its Empower loan origination system in 2024.The firm is primarily focused on creating an application programming interface (API) marketplace where Dark Matter Technologies can coll

Lights, camera, lawsuit! A copycat commission lawsuit has been filed in Los Angeles.The suit, known as Fierro, after its lead plaintiff Gael Fierro, a Californian home seller, accuses the real estate industry of colluding to artificially inflate real estate agent commissions. It was filed on Wednesd

HousingWire Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler sat down with Jim Butler, chief technology officer at Stavvy, to talk about moving real estate from paper to a digital transaction, how the company is using AI, and the vibe you get working with industry experts. Previously, Butler served as CTO of HqO, an e

Mortgage rates continued their descent this week to mark their lowest level since May 2023, welcome news for homebuyers who have been waiting on the sidelines for rates to drop. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.6% as of Jan. 11, a decrease from last week’s 6.66%, according to Freddie Mac‘s

Despite lower mortgage rates, housing starts ended the year on a downturn, after posting a large monthly gain in November.New construction starts fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.460 million units, down 4.3% month over month, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Census B

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is sounding the alarm about an accelerating rate of scams that most commonly target older Americans, where a bad actor will pose as an official representative of the Bureau or another federal agency.The CFPB published a blog post on Tuesday describing

The bankruptcy plan administrator for Reverse Mortgage Investment Trust (RMIT), the parent company of former industry lender Reverse Mortgage Funding (RMF), has filed a court petition to convert from Chapter 11 bankruptcy to Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The RMIT/RMF estate has run “out of money” to continu

Top U.S. mortgage lender United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) has rebranded its consumer-facing website FindAMortgageBroker.com to Mortgage Matchup.Mortgage Matchup will continue to be a consumer-facing website focused on homebuyers and real estate agents and offer educational material around the home bu

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in the spotlight again over the role some housing-industry experts say they could play in reducing mortgage rates if they resumed a more active investor role in the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) market.That’s a role those government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) have