In March of this year, FHFA published a news release granting flexibilities for appraisals on purchase and rate term refinance loans. This decision is designed to help borrowers and lenders during the COVID-19 pandemic. FHFA has extended the loan flexibilities numerous times since. It has now been extended once again until November 30, 2020, according to the latest news release from FHFA on October 19, 2020.

We are excited to announce that Mortech is now integrated with Own Up, a mortgage marketplace with a goal to bring clarity and ease to digital borrowers beginning their journey in the outdated mortgage industry. With this new integration, the two solutions are looking to provide every aspect of the digital mortgage experience to home buyers in one easy-to-use platform. 

This week on Meet Mortech we want to introduce you all to our newest Customer Success Manager, Tyler Lemkau! 

Favorite part of the job: My favorite part of the job is the CSM team that I was able to join. Onboarding is exciting as a new hire, but doing so in the middle of a pandemic has its challenges. The CSM team has been beyond helpful, energetic and patient with all of my questions. I look forward to the day when we can all meet in person, including the remainder of the Mortech team. I'm grateful for the opportunity to work with awesome people. 

Favorite things to do on his days off: I enjoy playing golf, not great at it, but I enjoy being outside and hanging with friends on the course. If I'm not there, I'm usually with my family doing some type of activity with my active kiddos.

Favorite places to travel: I really like the Pacific Northwest and visiting my family in Texas. A few trips to Cancun have been pretty memorable as well.

On September 14, 2020, USDA released a bulletin stating that the funding for USDA’s Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program will be temporarily unavailable for approximately two weeks beginning on October 1, 2020. At the beginning of each fiscal year the funding is not available for a short period of time and the USDA anticipates this brief lapse to continue for Fiscal Year 2021.

During the temporory lapse, the Rural Housing Development will issue Conditional Commitments “subject to the availability of commitment authority” for purchase and refinance transactions. In order for purchase transactions to be eligible, lenders will be required to provide the Conditional Commitments Form RD 3555-15/18E.

Even with economic uncertainty, consumers are still looking to buy or sell homes, which means as we enter the fall season it’s important to be more intentional with your purchase lead acquisition spend to help you stay ahead of the market shift. Traffic to Zillow Group mobile apps and websites reached a record 218 million average monthly unique users, an increase of 12% year-over-year last quarter.*

Why are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac looking to increase refinance rates by 0.5% when refinance loans have been surging for mortgage companies? Interest rates have been at record lows, and lenders have applied stricter qualifying requirements to lower risks due to the uncertainty of the market, yet the agencies are looking to increase the price of Limited cash-out refinance and Cash-out refinance loans up 50 basis points starting December 1.

Letters were distributed to lenders from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on August 12 stating the increase was due to the uncertainty of the market and economic risk due to COVID-19.

At Mortech we pride ourselves in the great partnerships we have with various companies in the mortgage space. Whether it be an integration with a point of sale platform, loan origination system or mortgage offer marketplace - our ultimate goal with these partnerships is to bring simplicity and automation to our lender’s workflow so they can spend more time growing their business and creating lasting relationships with their customers.

This past month, Partner Relationship Manager, Mike Russell, got to speak with Brett Siegal, Founder and CEO of the home buying management platform, Ruuster. New to the industry, Ruuster has created a space that educates and empowers thoughtful and ambitious home buyers throughout their entire home buying journey. By targeting home buyers at the earliest stages of their journey, Ruuster is looking to not only be an education resource, but also the solution home buyers use to conquer every step of the process. 

We are excited to announce that Mortech is now integrated with FreeRateUpdate.com, a mortgage rate marketplace that showcases available mortgage offers from industry leading lenders in your preferred location. With this new integration, the two solutions are looking to simplify the digital mortgage experience not only for lenders, but homebuyers too.

FreeRateUpdate.com is looking to save borrowers time during the stressful mortgage process by providing them with an easy to use platform where they can compare rates among lenders based off their specific scenario. Whether it be looking for refinance options or for financing a new home purchase, FreeRateUpdate.com wants to help consumers connect with a qualified lender without the need to input personal information including; credit score or SSN, before getting started. FreeRateUpdate.com partners with hundreds of qualified lenders to give mortgage rate shoppers one convenient place to get multiple rate quotes. It makes rate comparison shopping easy! For additional information on FreeRateUpdate.com you can give their team a call at 888-99-LEADS or email them at sales@freerateupdate.com. 

Recently the long-term viability of LIBOR was undermined due to cases of rate manipulation, low volumes for underlying interbank transactions and the reluctance of panel banks to submit quotes used to calculate LIBOR. As a result, the Alternative Reference Rates Committee has now recommended SOFR as a replacement index for USD LIBOR-indexed contracts.

Let’s take a step back and dissect what this means for the industry, what these products are and what the future looks like. To start let’s talk about what LIBOR products are. LIBOR (London Inter-bank Offered Rate) is an interest rate set in London by major banks. It is an average interest rate (varying from a single day to a 12-month period) estimate of what major banks would be willing to lend to other banks.

At Mortech we pride ourselves in the great partnerships we have with various companies in the mortgage space. Whether it be an integration with a point of sale platform, loan origination system or mortgage offer marketplace - our ultimate goal with these partnerships is to bring simplicity and automation to our lender’s workflow so they can spend more time growing their business and creating lasting relationships with their customers.

One of these valued partnerships is with Credit Karma Home. Credit Karma Home, the mortgage division of Credit Karma, has created a platform to help guide their more than 100 million members through the complicated and frustrating process of purchasing or refinancing a home. By leveraging insights they have on their members, they are able to match them with financial products that make sense for their specific scenario.