Habitat for Humanity Affiliates in Florida and South Carolina will be able to build more affordable homes after the recent sale of mortgage notes on their behalf. Leaders at CBC Mortgage Agency, a nationally chartered housing finance agency and a source of down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, announced its CRA Note Exchange platform had completed the sale on Sept. 12. CRA Note Exchange enables the sale of Community Reinvestment Act-eligible loans through an online portal to free up capital for additional affordable home construction. Banks and other financial institutions can review, select and purchase loans in specific areas that support their CRA or other lending objectives. The exchange was launched in 2018. Habitat for Humanity is a global nonprofit housing organization…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS As interest rates climb towards seven percent and loan applications fall to their slowest pace since 1997, leaders at Rocket Mortgage say they have a solution and it has a name: Inflation Buster. Rocket’s new Inflation Buster program was announced on Sept. 16. It gives homebuyers a reprieve by reducing their monthly mortgage payment by one percentage point for the first year of their loan, according to a press release. Bill Banfield, EVP of Capital Markets at Rocket Mortgage, sat down for an interview with The Mortgage Note to explain how the program is the result of leaders at the company listening to the needs of their clients. “You, me, everybody is talking about inflation. You can’t…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS Update: This home, without photos of the seller dressed as the fictional character Michael Myers from the “Halloween” series of slasher films, is now under contract. A New England couple’s house listing has gone viral because it features photos of the fictional character Michael Myers from the “Halloween” series of slasher films. A man is seen holding a knife on the property and inside the house, which is listed for $375,000. It is located at 73 Guys Lane in Weare, New Hampshire. Realtor Tommy Bolduc of Keller Williams Realty-Metropolitan said on Tuesday morning that the two-bedroom, two-bathroom house has been popular online since it hit the market on Sept. 30. “Anybody who is looking for a house in…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS Officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency are warning survivors of Hurricane Ian they should be aware of con artists and criminals looking to take advantage of the situation. Predators may promise homeowners a disaster grant in return for payment or fill out an application for assistance without a person’s knowledge, according to the FEMA website. “If a FEMA Inspector comes to your home and you did not submit a FEMA application, your information may have been used without your knowledge to create a FEMA application. If so, please inform the inspector that you did not apply for FEMA assistance so they can submit a request to stop further processing of the application,” the website says. People…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS Fans of HBO’s “The Gilded Age” can take a guided tour of one of the mansions where the popular show created by Julian Fellowes is being filmed this fall. “The Gilded Age” begins in 1882 with the character Marian Brook moving from rural Pennsylvania to New York City to live with her thoroughly old-money aunts, Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook after the death of her father. The show’s first-year finale earned 1.6 million viewers across HBO platforms, according to Alexandra Del Rosario at Deadline. Rotten Tomatoes critics said the show has “an outstanding cast making the travails of the rich a compelling watch.” In real life, The Elms was the summer home of Mr. and Mrs. Edward…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS Eight senior living facilities that are inaccessible to the disabled will be retrofitted as part of a settlement between officials at the U.S. Justice Department and a New Jersey architecture firm. According to a press release issued on Thursday, the owner of J. Randolph Parry Architects P.C. has agreed to settle a federal lawsuit alleging that it violated the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to design and construct senior living facilities that are accessible to people with disabilities. The retrofits will, among other things, make the kitchens and bathrooms at these properties more accessible and useable. “The Justice Department is committed to vigorously enforcing the federal laws guaranteeing people with disabilities…
The Chief Operating Officer at SingleSource Property Solutions said in a recent interview with The Mortgage Note that their mission is to protect neighborhoods. Ed Austin has been working in the mortgage industry for 25 years on the vendor management side. He has been COO of SingleSource in Pennsylvania for seven years. In August, the company celebrated its 20-year anniversary of the launch of home equity service offerings. The company’s second mortgage services are available in economical bundles and include valuations, title products, and online closings, according to a press release. Austin said in a statement that with their specialized home equity bundles, lenders are significantly reducing the amount of time and expenses associated with closing a second lien transaction.…
By CHUCK GREEN There are those who downright groove to the tune of a lifestyle embedded squarely in the middle of the action. You know, the big city, the vibe of being at the nexus of it all. Downright intoxicating. Conversely, others are swayed by the tranquility of a smaller city or town, finding it as relaxing as, oh, say, a running tab on hot totties. Oh, yeah. Pure nirvana. Now, for those who prefer to be where life can be chill but also gyrate to the beat of maintaining relatively close proximity to where it can be a regular buzzsaw of activity as well, the concept of adjacent cities just might speak their language. Adjacent towns or cities share…
By TYRONE TOWNSEND and KIMBERLEY HAAS Wells Fargo leadership has laid off employees in a move that is being blamed on a dramatically smaller originations market. In a statement to The Mortgage Note, Spokesperson Jennifer Langan said the latest Mortgage Bankers Association forecast has total originations for 2022 at $2.4T, down 40% year-over-year, with refinances down over 70%. “The home lending displacements are the natural result of cyclical changes in the broader home lending environment, as has been acknowledged by most mortgage providers across the industry. Employees affected by these changes have each been an essential part of our success. We are carrying out displacements in a transparent and thoughtful manner and providing assistance, such as severance and career counseling,”…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS Leaders at Bank of America provided corporate funding for a new documentary exploring how people in the United States grappled with the Holocaust. “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” a three-part, six-hour series by Ken Burns is running on PBS this week and all the episodes are available online. On a PBS website promoting the documentary, it says, “Americans consider themselves a ‘nation of immigrants,’ but as the catastrophe of the Holocaust unfolded in Europe, the United States proved unwilling to open its doors to more than a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge… Did the nation fail to live up to its ideals? This is a history to be reckoned with.” Burns…
