By KIMBERLEY HAAS The new executive vice president of Rocket Pro TPO took to social media on Tuesday to question the actions of United Wholesale Mortgage’s CEO. Mike Fawaz, who served as senior vice president of sales before recently being promoted to EVP, published a piece called “Mortgage Brokers – Still Truly Independent?” on LinkedIn where he said UWM’s President and CEO Mat Ishbia believes they have “pricing power” over brokers. “If he’s right, that presents a very clear danger to America’s mortgage brokers and their clients. One of the most powerful benefits of being a mortgage broker is independence. Independence of choice and real competition is the only effective tool a broker has to ensure someone else doesn’t dictate margin and…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS Officials at the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Thursday that they have secured over $31 million from City National Bank to resolve allegations of redlining in Los Angeles County. City National is the largest bank headquartered in Los Angeles and among the 50 largest banks in the country. This is the largest redlining settlement agreement in the department’s history, according to a press release. Redlining is an illegal practice where lenders avoid providing credit services to individuals living in communities of color because of the race, color, or national origin of the residents in those communities. According to the complaint filed in federal court, City National avoided providing mortgage lending services to majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS Leaders at Wells Fargo announced this week that they are reducing their home lending footprint and some people are saying it may be big news in the lending space, but will likely not make much of a difference to the average consumer. It was announced Tuesday that the company, formerly the nation’s largest mortgage lender, is exiting the correspondent lending channel and shrinking its mortgage servicing portfolio. Plans are to focus on serving bank customers and members of minority communities. Lawrence White, a professor of economics at the New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business, sat down with the Mortgage Note to talk about the news on Wednesday. White said he hopes the move by leaders at…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS The 26-year-old CEO of Alpha Capital Funds has plans to buy multi-family properties throughout the state of Connecticut with the goal of acquiring 500 units by the end of 2023. Tyler Smith, who says he was always hustling, started his career investing in real estate when he was still a student at Quinnipiac University in New Haven. “I was putting myself through school,” Smith said during a recent interview with The Mortgage Note. “I came across real estate.” Smith said he was 20 years old when he closed his first deal. Over time, his original company, Quick Cash for CT Houses, grew. “Once I started doing a lot more deals I scaled the company up. We were…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS A United States district court judge in Michigan has granted in part United Wholesale Mortgage’s motion to dismiss complaints in an ultimatum lawsuit filed by America’s Moneyline. According to court documents, on Dec. 22 Judge Laurie Michelson dismissed fraud and promissory estoppel claims, as well as all but one declaratory-judgment subclaim. Lawyers for America’s Moneyline say that in 2021 leaders at United Wholesale Mortgage issued an ultimatum that forced a number of mortgage brokers, including their client, to choose between doing business with UWM and two of their competitors. AML leaders, relying on alleged promises that UWM would not enforce the ultimatum against it, continued to do business with both UWM and Rocket Pro. After UWM sued…
By CHUCK GREEN and KIMBERLEY HAAS The U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing two cases challenging the legality of President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan on Feb. 28 and The Mortgage Note is asking the question, why not mortgage debt relief when that is a bigger burden to average Americans? Mortgage balances rose by $282 billion in the third quarter of 2022 and were at $11.67 trillion by the end of September. According to a press release issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student loan balances slightly declined to $1.57 trillion. Total household debt reached $16.51 trillion in Q3. That includes mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, and student loans. Sarah Paulson, a certified financial planner at Valkyrie Financial…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS Leaders in the industry are committed to giving back during the holiday season and throughout the year. It was announced earlier this month that Down Payment Resource in Atlanta, Ga., will help a family in Memphis, Tenn., attain their homeownership dreams by donating $10,000 to the Homeownership Council of America’s Equity Down Payment Assistance program. They provide down payment and closing cost assistance for low-to-moderate income and minority first-time homebuyers. Leaders at Down Payment Resource say that is “a mission that aligns with our company’s founding goal of expanding affordable homeownership program awareness, understanding, and participation.” Rob Chrane, founder and CEO of Down Payment Resource, said in a statement for The Mortgage Note that they are supporting the program because…
Over the past two years, a number of financial companies have relocated their offices to West Palm Beach in Florida, leading some industry watchers to dub the area “Wall Street South.” One of the nation’s leading VA mortgage lenders, NewDay USA, recently took over the top two floors of 360 Rosemary, a 20-story, 297,000-square-foot office building in West Palm Beach. In addition, the company is in negotiations to relocate its Maryland-based headquarters to West Palm Beach. NewDay anticipates the West Palm Beach office to grow to over 500 team members in 2023, according to a press release. “We continue to see a wave of financial industry giants moving to Palm Beach for a better business environment, an incredible talent pool…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS Leaders at loanDepot are saying they are pleased with a federal judge’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction against six former employees and CrossCountry Mortgage. The employees are currently employed by CrossCountry and are accused of taking sensitive customer information from loanDepot to their new employer. On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Edmond Chang of the Northern District of Illinois issued the injunction. Chang found that “there is a likelihood of success on all of loanDepot’s claims against the defendants.” loanDepot’s lawyers claim that CrossCountry and the six former employees misappropriated loanDepot trade secrets; that CrossCountry aided and abetted contractual and fiduciary violations by these recent hires; and that CrossCountry was responsible for tortious interference with the…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS The future of live-work-play communities looks bright heading into 2023 as investors figure out ways to make money in real estate with a recession looming. A CoworkingCafe study shows that 512 live-work-play communities were built across the nation between 2012 and 2022, with another 101 in the pipeline for the next two years. New York City is currently leading the way with the highest number of mixed-use buildings with 50. Four more are planned for 2023. Analysts at CoworkingCafe used data from CommercialEdge and Yardi Matrix. Doug Ressler, Business Intelligence Manager at Yardi Matrix, recently sat down with The Mortgage Note. Ressler said the company does data research on different asset classes of commercial real estate. They have…
