12.6.24 Nonadmitted Insurance; Richey May's Michael Nouguier on Cybersecurity; Payrolls In-line

To stay competitive in this market, lenders need to find efficiencies and understand their operations in a much deeper way. Richey May’s consulting, cybersecurity, business intelligence, and automation services are designed by mortgage experts to help you continue to drive growth and increase profitability. Visit https://richeymay.com to learn more.

Transcript

“Today’s three-year-olds can switch on laptops and open their favorite apps. When I was three, I ate mud.” Times change. Remember when homeowner’s insurance was an after-thought? In some counties and states, being approved for insurance has become as big a concern as being approved for a loan. “Nonadmitted” insurance is becoming the new norm in many places that face untenable economics when it comes to insuring houses, like coastal Florida or wildfire-prone California. Essentially, insurance tends to be a heavily regulated field, with governments ensuring that insurers have enough money to compensate those they insure, that they’re maintaining high-quality business practices, and that price hikes are limited year to year. When those insurers won’t touch an owner, perhaps they can go to a state-backed insurer, but when even those go out of reach, nonadmitted insurance is there. They have none of the protections or backing of the government and existed at first to insure the comically uninsurable, like nuclear waste projects or fireworks factories. Nonadmitted premiums rose 27.5 percent from 2022 to 2023, compared to 13.8 percent among the admitted market. The number of nonadmitted policies in Florida rose 73 percent to hit 92,000 over the past 14 years. (Today’s podcast can be found here and Richey May is sponsoring this week’s. Richey May’s consulting, cybersecurity, business intelligence, and automation services are designed by mortgage experts to help you continue to drive growth and increase profitability. Hear an Interview with Richey May’s Michael Nouguier on cybersecurity to thwart holiday attacks and best practices as we enter 2025.)

Leadership position sought, and transitions

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Primis Mortgage is excited to announce the addition of John Browning as regional sales manager for the Washington D.C., Virginia, and Maryland metro areas. Browning will work closely with the national sales director to hire new talent and expand the company’s lending reach. Prior to Primis Mortgage, Browning has proven himself as a seasoned expert in mortgage management, having led markets with nearly $1.5 billion annual mortgage volume. He brings a knack for talent acquisition, onboarding, and consistently demonstrates an innate ability to build strong partnerships. “John brings a wealth of experience growing and leading high-producing teams,” said Chris Blevins, national sales director. “I’m excited to see him leverage his industry expertise and relationships to develop these markets.” Connect with John on LinkedIn, by email, or visit here to learn more about how Primis Mortgage is changing the industry for the better.

A highly accomplished C-level executive in mortgage & adjacent industries, with a proven track record in leadership, turnarounds, growth, transitions, and successful exits, is seeking a new leadership role. Achievements include channel reboot 12x in 11 months. Intrapreneurial experience with rapidly growing companies and start-up/channel/pivot scenarios. Solutionist for “does it work” before MVP. Expert leadership and bridge for operations, sales, vendors, investors, capital markets, marketing, recruiting, and compliance. Background includes ownership, manager/ic-operator, sales, operations, product development, M&A, and P&L success. Exceptional agency relationships and knowledge. Experience with VC-backed firms, PTC’s, banks, PE’s, Insurance, Developer/Builder, IMB’s and brokers. Ideal position is President (line or business), COO/CSO/CBO or similar roles with a VC or FinTech/FinServ tech utilized platform or IMB/Bank/group looking to grow, pivot, or build for superior margins, exceptional scale, and top market share. Contact Anjelica Nixt to connect with this dynamic & driven, galvanizing, goal attaining peak performer.

(As a reminder, anyone searching for employment can post their resume at no charge at www.lendernews.com, and potential employers can view all resumes for several months for only $75.)

Lender and broker software, services, and products

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“2 FOR 1 DEAL! Black Friday may have been last week, but that doesn’t mean the deals have to stop. Join us on 12/11 for a live webinar showcasing Halcyon’s cutting-edge Tax Wallet solution and get a preview of Byte’s all-new browser-based LOS platform for free. See how lenders can streamline their IRS verification process without leaving the Byte platform. If you’re looking for a faster, more efficient and cost-effective income transcript solution or looking for a powerful, yet affordable LOS platform that gives you total control over your loan process, you don’t want to miss this webinar. Register today!”

Webinar: Total Expert, Evocalize, and rebel iQ Team Up to Deliver Industry-first Lead Gen Solution! The way you generate leads is about to change forever. Starting in January 2025, if your leads don't comply with the FCC's new lead generation rules, you're at serious risk for large fines, potentially millions of dollars! Join the CEOs of Total Expert, Evocalize, and rebel iQ on Dec 10th to discover a revolutionary approach to attracting, capturing, and converting high-intent leads, all built with compliance in mind. Becoming your own lead portal is just a few clicks away. Register here.

Is your 2025 AI game plan ready? In today’s tough market, efficiency and accuracy matter more than ever, and AI can help give you that edge. Meet Guideline Buddy, the generative AI underwriting assistant that makes guideline work easy by giving quick, accurate answers to underwriting questions and scenarios. Best of all, it’s now free for individual users! For companies, Guideline Buddy offers custom AI chatbot solutions to help navigate lender and investor guidelines internally, boosting efficiency and keeping you future-ready. Built by industry veterans, this tool is designed to help you stay ahead of the game in any market. Individual users can sign up for free. Enterprise users can schedule a demo. Start 2025 with confidence, Guideline Buddy has your back!

How much extra time does your team have? How much does it cost you to ask borrowers to resubmit incomplete documents? Can you afford to allow document collection and underwriting mistakes to create a bottleneck in your pipeline? It’s time to think differently. Verifying assets and income can waste valuable resources and frustrate loan officers and underwriters. Borrowers asked to locate, scan, or photograph bank statements may submit (and resubmit) distorted documents that are hard to read. For lenders, this means extra work and increased potential for error and fraud. Utilizing LoanCraft's Bank Data Express solution, lenders can simplify underwriting, elevate customer experience, and enhance decision-making for financial institutions. Beyond the convenience for borrowers and enhanced accuracy, the innovative override feature also allows underwriters to apply documented, transparent judgment when needed. Today’s mortgage lender knows that efficiency and accuracy are paramount. LoanCraft’s powerful tool can help turbocharge your pipeline and give you confidence in underwriting. Get started today!

“Prepare for 2025 with the only mortgage point of sale fully customized for your business. In today’s competitive mortgage marketplace, customizing workflows and borrower experience is crucial to differentiation. With the industry-first configurability of Maxwell Point of Sale, lenders can define workflows for any mortgage product, while configuring triggers and business rules to align the borrower experience to operational processes. Maxwell Point of Sale also features more than 60 third-party integrations, allowing lending teams to seamlessly connect with other vital pieces of their workflow, from credit and verifications to pricing and disclosures. It’s no wonder that Maxwell Point of Sale is the top ranked mortgage point of sale on Capterra with 4.8/5 stars. Want to learn more? Let us know and we’ll show you what Maxwell can do for you and your borrower.”

HomeLend, the direct investment platform and liquidity hub of the mortgage industry, has launched Prime and Non-QM Jumbo Loan programs with loan amounts of up to $5mm. Its programs allow for both Full and Alternative (bank statement, 1099) documentation options, available with 15- & 30-year FRM and 5/7/10 year ARM products. With loan amounts up to $5mm, LTV's up to 80%, and FICO as low as 620, HomeLend’s Jumbo loan program is one of the most expansive in the industry. HomeLend is an innovative technology and operational platform for the purchase and sale of mortgage loans. Investors and securitizers of Jumbo loans may utilize HomeLend to help ramp production and increase volumes in a timely manner. Lenders and investors may sell and purchase jumbo loans on a flow basis and engage in real-time pricing via the HomeLend technology platform. To learn more about HomeLend, please visit here.

The CFPB and legal maneuvers are alive and well

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Of course, anyone can sue anyone else. But when a large company pits itself against a government agency, well, that is different than suing a neighbor when their tree root cracks your sidewalk.

“Rocket Mortgage, the nation’s largest mortgage lender and a part of Rocket Companies, filed suit in Federal District Court against the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to correct conflicts between the government’s regulations requiring appraiser independence and its enforcement actions seeking to hold lenders liable for the conduct of independent licensed appraisers. Rocket Mortgage also filed a motion to dismiss the claim the DOJ brought against the company based on the same regulatory conflicts and misapplication of applicable law.”

“Yes, but will ‘teams’ operating as unlicensed brokers be addressed?” The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau continues to cram, for lack of a better term, announcements ahead of a change in presidential administration. This “joke” is circulating. “How do you know when someone wants to run for public office (after they get fired from their CFPB job)? They get their picture in an announcement where the government is handing out checks. He’s as shameless as the guy who is going to fire him.”

Yes, be careful if you refer a client to a credit repair company. The CFPB will begin distributing refund checks to more than 4 million consumers harmed by a ring of corporate entities operating some of the largest credit repair brands in the country, including Lexington Law and CreditRepair.com. “The companies violated federal telemarketing laws by illegally collecting upfront fees for telemarketed credit repair services. The CFPB also alleged that the companies violated Federal consumer protection law by engaging in bait-and-switch advertising.”

The CFPB took action against student lender Climb Credit and its investors, including 1/0 (“One Zero”), filing a proposed order, which if entered will require the companies to stop making representations in their advertising about the quality of the training programs at their partner schools and graduates’ hiring rates and salaries. “The CFPB sued Climb Credit for offering loans for educational programs that often were not vetted for quality and job placement success or that failed the vetting, despite Climb Credit making representations to the contrary.

If entered, the order will require the defendants to stop making certain representations about their educational offerings in their advertising and pay a $950,000 civil money penalty into the CFPB’s victims relief fund.”

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took another step as part of the federal government’s broader initiative to protect consumers’ personal data by introducing a proposed rule to limit the types of personal identifying information data brokers can sell and to clarify the criteria for qualifying as a "consumer reporting agency" under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.”

It “proposed a rule to rein in data brokers that sell Americans' sensitive personal and financial information. The proposed rule would limit the sale of personal identifiers like Social Security Numbers and phone numbers collected by certain companies and make sure that people’s financial data such as income is only shared for legitimate purposes, like facilitating a mortgage approval, and not sold to scammers targeting those in financial distress. The proposal would make clear that when data brokers sell certain sensitive consumer information they are "consumer reporting agencies" under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), requiring them to comply with accuracy requirements, provide consumers access to their information, and maintain safeguards against misuse.”

Garris Horn LLP writes, “The CFPB’s recent report highlights a pressing concern: state data privacy laws, while groundbreaking for many industries, often leave financial institutions operating under outdated privacy frameworks. These gaps result from broad exemptions for entities covered by federal laws such as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). The CFPB contends that these exemptions leave consumers' financial data exposed compared to protections offered in other sectors.

Remember that a “notice of proposed rulemaking” is not the rule itself, so there is more process coming before anything becomes effective. “The CFPB issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking related to consumer reporting and the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The proposed rule would amend Regulation V to implement FCRA definitions of consumer report and consumer reporting agency, as well as certain other FCRA provisions, to, among other things, ensure that FCRA protections are applied to sensitive consumer information that the statute was designed to protect, including information sold by data brokers.

The CFPB also released a Fast Facts Summary of the proposed rule.

For non-banks, and there are thousands of them that originate loans, on Wednesday, December 11, and Tuesday, December 17, staff from the CFPB’s Nonbank Registration Team will host virtual RegCast on the Nonbank Registration: Orders Final Rule. It will review frequently asked regulatory questions received thus far in the implementation of the rule, including coverage-related questions. Both dates will be virtual-only presentations and will feature the same content: December 11 from 11:30am to 1:00pm ET and December 17 from , 2024 from 1:00pm to 2:30pm ET.

Curinos weighs in with volume

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Mortgage prices are derived from supply and demand. According to Curinos’ new proprietary application index, refinances decreased 42% week over week and decreased 26% in November; the purchase index decreased 31% week over week and decreased 9% for November as a whole. November 2024 funded mortgage volume increased 51% YoY and decreased 13% MoM. The average 30-year conforming retail funded rate in November 2024 was 6.19, 6bps lower than October 2024 and 102bps lower than the same month last year. Purchase rates were 29bps higher MoM and 98bps lower YoY, while Refinance rates were 9bps higher MoM and 23bps lower YoY. Curinos sources a statistically significant data set directly from lenders to produce these benchmark figures, and one can drill into this data further here.

Capital markets: another set of jobs data comes in as expected

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It's a familiar pattern in the bond market. As a key economic report approaches, Treasury yields adjust based on expectations. When the report comes out, there’s often a quick reaction, followed by the market settling into a new range until the next big update. Right now, there’s an extra layer to consider because yields are close to recent lows (e.g., 10-year Treasury yields closed yesterday below the 200-day average of 4.21 percent).

The current economic report in question is today’s release of November payrolls data. That report should help clarify how hurricanes affected the data, and we were expected to see stronger payroll numbers in November than October’s numbers that are less reliable due to the storms, strikes, and survey issues; the market seems ready to overlook them. However, any revisions to October’s data will still be worth watching. Keep in mind that next week’s consumer price figures hold much greater potential to derail a downward adjustment to policy rates at the final Federal Open Market Committee meeting of the year.

Today brought the aforementioned November payrolls report: Headline payrolls were +227k versus 200k expectations. The unemployment rate was 4.2 percent when it was seen holding steady at 4.1 percent, while average hourly earnings were +.4 percent versus forecasts of a +0.3 percent month-over-month and 3.9 percent year-over-year increase compared with 0.4 percent and 4.0 percent previously. Later today brings preliminary December Michigan sentiment, which will offer markets additional insights on the health of the consumer post-election, consumer credit for October, and remarks from several Fed speakers. After the latest salvo of employment data, Agency MBS prices are better than Thursday evening by about .125, the 2-year is yielding 4.10, and the 10-year is yielding 4.15 after closing yesterday at 4.18 percent.

We’re coming up on the holiday travel season, so let’s skip the usual humor or trivia and put out some advice from a retired flight attendant who flew for 35 years. Weather delays, equipment or crew issues, and computer glitches seem to have become the norm. (Part 5 of 5.)

16. Take showers, brush your teeth, leave the perfume off, don’t eat stinky food (Caesar salad and tuna fish, I’m talking to you!), and bring headphones. Trust me. These things sound basic but add to stress on crowded planes. If you are stuck on the tarmac for 3 hours after a 4-hour flight, you will thank me for this.

17. Bring a sweater if you tend to be cold. Attendants are tired of half-naked girls asking us to turn the heat up. We are working hard, and we work up a sweat, so be comfortable wear clothes and being a sweater!

18. Flights are full. If you buy cheap seats, you will not be able to sit with your family. It says so when you purchase your ticket! Flight attendants aren’t there to rearrange the whole plane just so you can sit with your family because you tried to save $100 on a third-party website.

19. Don’t tell a Flight Attendant they look tired. We are and we know. You may cause us to ugly cry right there in the galley.

20. Bring snacks and water. Most airlines are barely getting ice these days and catering can be an issue due to inventory and staffing issues!