Hello, LOs!
The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage today is hovering around 4.46%. You add the rates uptick to soaring home prices and, on average, the implied monthly mortgage payment is up about $500 per month since March 2021, Freddie Mac economist Len Kiefer wrote on Twitter.
Rates won't be going down by much for some time, and while homes aren't getting cheaper, inventory also won't dramatically recover anytime soon. It all translates to real pressure on mortgage originators, particularly lenders who rely on products that aren't competitive or marketable in such an extreme market.
In recent weeks, numerous mortgage originators have talked about broadening their product offerings to find buyers that might need a non-vanilla loan.
Shashank Shekhar, the head of InstaMortgage, said they're getting into bridge loans, trade-in loans and reverse mortgages. Finance of America said on its most recent earnings call that it would look toward reverse mortgages, investor loans, home improvement products and commercial loans as origination volumes fall. There's also been quite a demand for fix-and-flip loans in recent months. In short, lots and lots of non-QM.
UWM announced today that it is rolling out bank statement loans for self-employed borrowers. Mortgage amounts will be capped at $3 million and the loan-to-value ratio is limited to 90%. There's no mortgage insurance required. UWM offered an interest-only product a few months back, but this is obviously a much bigger deal.
LOs – how much demand are you seeing for bank statement loans and other non-QM products? Have lenders gotten better at processing those loans after the well-documented problems in 2020 and early 2021? What products are other lenders offering consumers that you wish your lender/go-to wholesaler offered? Email me at jkleimann@housingwire.com.
James Kleimann
Managing Editor, HousingWire
.jpg?width=1116&upscale=true&name=DEEP-22-NQBoom-970x250%20(3).jpg)
.jpg?width=1116&upscale=true&name=815236532-SLD-BannerAd-970x250-B%20(5).jpg)
EmoticonEmoticon