As the year is coming to an end, homeowners are more optimistic than ever that their home is worth more than they owe on it, and they expect that value to keep rising through 2019. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 69% of American Homeowners now say the value of their home is worth more than the amount they owe on their mortgage, up from the 66%, a nine-year high, established in May of 2018. And at that time, just 24% said their home was not worth more than what they still owed on it, though 10% were not sure.
Wells Supports Fire Victims
Wells Fargo & Company’s Mobile Response Unit has arrived in Chico, Calif., to provide housing recovery assistance as well as help for auto, credit card, personal lines-loan, student loan and small business loan customers in areas impacted by recent wildfires.
“Our thoughts are with those customers and communities that have been impacted by the devastating wildfires,” said Joanna Padilla-Mitchell, River Valley district manager. “The arrival of our Mobile Response Unit in Chico brings a variety of on-site assistance to help our customers as they begin the recovery process.”
The Mobile Response Unit is a 75-foot, heavy-duty commercial “office on wheels” designed to bring valuable information directly to Wells Fargo customers after a disaster. It has private offices and is equipped with computers and cellular data feed with satellite backup. The Mobile Response Unit is powered by self-contained generators.
Wells Fargo has pledged $1.75 million in donations to support wildfire relief efforts, with $225,000 going to the American Red Cross and the remaining amount to be disbursed to nonprofits located in affected communities.
Predicting Borrower Behavior
Equifax is offering Mortgage Lead Generation Models—a data-base offering designed to help predict the likelihood that a lead will apply for a mortgage within the next two to six months.
The solution uses credit, asset, property and demographic data, and includes four different models, which are segmented based on the consumer profile:
- New purchase
- First-time home buyer
- Refinance
- Home equity
"It's critical for mortgage lenders to get off the sidelines and become more proactive in identifying prospects and building meaningful relationships with them," said Tyler Sawyer, vice president of rental and real estate at Equifax. "This solution makes the data actionable to help lenders find the right customer at the right time, which is important in a highly competitive market where 55 percent of buyers are starting their process online."
The Mortgage Lead Generation Models allow lenders to determine their own scenarios and desired number of leads for retention or acquisition. Equifax's models create a score that appends to a name and address provided by the lender or even identify new leads for those likely to transact in specific geographic areas.
The score is based on the lender's requirements and ranges from 1 to 999; the higher the score, the more likely the consumer is to apply for a mortgage loan. Armed with this information, lenders can better execute their marketing campaigns.
In an internal test of the solution, Equifax found impactful lift across segments: The top 10 percent of the scores captured between 2.4 to 4 times more mortgage applicants than a randomly selected sample of equal size.
