The refinance market has been closely monitored throughout the year by many in the industry, and the resulting sentiments have all been pretty similar: there are considerably less refi opportunities than there were a year ago. This has been a trend that we’ve seen since the Fed announced rate changes last January:

Refis are becoming less of an option 

If you needed anymore confirmation beyond what most in the industry have been saying for the six months, Marksman internal data also shows that the number of refis are shrinking. While the percentage of purchase loans decreased from July to December at the end of 2017, that was to be expected, what with the looming anticipation of rate changes by the Federal Reserve (Fed). However, after refis made up 63% of loans at the end of December, that number has decreased to as low as 38%, and clocked in at 40% at the end of July. With rates still on the rise, trusting refis to make a comeback doesn’t seem to be an option for the rest of the year.

If you’re thinking about getting into online quoting, the numbers say that now is the best time to do it. Since the start of the year, online rate marketplace volume has risen nearly 150%, hitting its highest point, so far, in July.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders have brought suit against the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) claiming the agreement made in 2012 to bail out the agencies is rendering their shares valueless. The suit also claims the structure of the FHFA is unconstitutional because of the single Director removable only for cause by the President.

Fannie Mae is piloting a new type of mortgage insurance, however response to the new program hasn’t been entirely optimistic.

The mortgage insurance option is called Enterprise-Paid Mortgage Insurance (EPMI) and allows a lender to deliver an over 80% loan-to-value (LTV) mortgage to Fannie Mae without acquiring mortgage insurance prior to loan delivery. Instead Fannie Mae charges an additional loan-level price adjustment. Then, they secure coverage under a forward insurance arrangement from a Fannie Mae approved qualified insurer, or an approved traditional mortgage insurer.

You’ve probably heard of Mortech Protection by now; our latest product offering that flags your current customers who are likely to need new mortgage financing by identifying homes within your current customer database that are currently listed for sale, or likely to list in the next 90 days. What you probably don’t know, is how we find potential listings with the accuracy we do.

Finding new opportunities to boost your mortgage purchase business as the mortgage industry ebbs and flows can be a hassle. Why come up with a number of different outbound marketing options that force you to cast a wide net – and typically spend the most money. Instead, you should be using targeted data that identifies current customers who are ready for a mortgage. Not having that reduces your efforts to throwing various methods at a wall and seeing what sticks. You end up spending so much time and effort into reaching out to customers who may have no need for a mortgage, and by the time you reach those who do, you’re no earlier than your competition.

We recently announced Mortech Protection, a new product that allows you to find addresses that are already within your customer portfolio that are likely to list in the next 90 days and may need new financing.

How? The power of big data.

Mortech Protection works as a predictive listings analytics platform that utilizes Zillow data to find properties in your customer database that are likely to list soon. This is based on trends of the millions of users that visit Zillow each month*. All you have to do is upload the addresses you want Mortech to monitor. We then analyze each one and send you the results bucketed into four tiers ranging from a very high chance to a low chance of listing.

As the refinance market continues to dry up, finding new ways to retain existing customers in today’s mortgage environment is growing in importance. This is, unfortunately, not that simple of a task. Lenders can wait until a borrower’s house is on the market, but then must compete against other lenders for their business. The other option is casting a wide net across all of your servicing portfolio, in the hopes of finding that borrower that is about to list. Doing this, though, causes an increased marketing spend for minimal results.

A new conventional product option has been announced by Freddie Mac and will be available starting July 29, 2018. The HomeOne mortgage is similar to the Home Possible Advantage option currently offered by Freddie Mac, but will be focused on first time homebuyers. This is a low down payment option with a down payment requirement of only 3 percent and requires no geographic or income restrictions.

Last week, Mortech announced a new integration with Arch MI. Through this integration, all Mortech users get immediate access to Arch MI RateStar quotes included in every applicable scenario, resulting in a faster workflow when Mortech users quote mortgage insurance-eligible products.