Analyst Barry Habib of MBS Highway told us last week that once the yield breaks above 3.00 percent it’s only a matter of time before it hits 3.80. Just think of what that might do to the mortgage business…
Distributed ledger technology known as blockchain has the potential to transform back-end functions in mortgage origination, servicing and secondary marketing, according to industry participants. Blockchain has gained some prominence as virtual currencies such as bitcoin are reliant on the technology. Tim Willis, head of the governance and controls practice at RiskSpan, an analytics firm, said reporting of servicing data to investors hasn’t changed much in the past two decades ...
The cryptocurrency Bitcoin recently surged above $19,500 a unit for a short time, briefly surpassing the “tulip mania” of the Netherlands in the 17th century to become the biggest recorded asset bubble in the history of Western civilization. That caused a number of participants in that space to slip into “irrational exuberance” mode, going to such extremes as not only buying Bitcoin with their credit cards but also taking out mortgages to snap up as much of the cryptocurrency as they possibly could ...
“While this flexible approach is generally beneficial for lenders and consumers, it does produce some uncertainty over what will be considered ‘good faith’ or ‘material,’” according to attorneys at the law firm of Buckley Sandler.
Marc Savitt, who runs The Mortgage Center, Martinsburg, WV, called the technology snafu a “big deal,” adding: “It’s taking weeks to receive we got in days.”