WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 14, 2019) — The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Builder Application Survey (BAS) data for February 2019 shows mortgage applications for new home purchases increased 3 percent compared from a year ago. Compared to January 2019, applications increased by 6 percent. This change does not include any adjustment for typical seasonal patterns. “The housing market remains poised for a strong spring, with last month’s increase in builder applications likely leading to a healthy 7 percent year-over-year rise in new home sales,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “We are starting to see signs of more new residential construction and inventory, which increases buying opportunities for the many home shoppers who have been hampered by the ongoing lack of supply.” Added Kan, “Slowing home-price growth, combined with stronger wage gains and lower mortgage rates, is translating to improving affordability conditions for spring buyers.” MBA estimates new single-family home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 690,000 units in February 2019, based on data from the BAS. The new home sales estimate is derived using mortgage application information from the BAS, as well as assumptions regarding market coverage and other factors. The seasonally adjusted estimate for February is a decrease of 3.2 percent from the January pace of 713,000 units. On an unadjusted basis, MBA estimates that there were 59,000 new home sales in February 2019, an increase of 9.3 percent from 54,000 new home sales in January. By product type, conventional loans composed 69.0 percent of loan applications, FHA loans composed 17.9 percent, RHS/USDA loans composed 0.6 percent and VA loans composed 12.5 percent. The average loan size of new homes increased from $334,532 in January to $340,692 in February. MBA’s Builder Application Survey tracks application volume from mortgage subsidiaries of home builders across the country. Utilizing this data, as well as data from other sources, MBA is able to provide an early estimate of new home sales volumes at the national, state, and metro level. This data also provides information regarding the types of loans used by new home buyers. Official new home sales estimates are conducted by the Census Bureau on a monthly basis. In that data, new home sales are recorded at contract signing, which is typically coincident with the mortgage application. For additional information on MBA’s Builder Applications Survey, please click here.

###The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is the national association representing the real estate finance industry, an industry that employs more than 280,000 people in virtually every community in the country. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the association works to ensure the continued strength of the nation's residential and commercial real estate markets, to expand homeownership, and to extend access to affordable housing to all Americans. MBA promotes fair and ethical lending practices and fosters professional excellence among real estate finance employees through a wide range of educational programs and a variety of publications. Its membership of over 2,300 companies includes all elements of real estate finance: mortgage companies, mortgage brokers, commercial banks, thrifts, REITs, Wall Street conduits, life insurance companies, and others in the mortgage lending field. For additional information, visit MBA's Web site: www.mba.org.

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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – March 14, 2019 – OpenClose®, an industry-leading multi-channel loan origination system (LOS) and digital mortgage fintech provider, announced that STRATMOR Group’s most recent Technology Insight Survey ranked the company’s LOS platform, point-of-sale (POS) system, and product and pricing engine (PPE) as having the highest Overall Satisfaction and Lender Loyalty Score™ out of any vendor surveyed in the mortgage industry.

This year, STRATMOR conducted a more extensive survey than in previous years, evaluating vendors in core areas of residential lending automation. OpenClose’s entire mortgage software solution suite was lauded by customers, scoring highly in all categories.

“Our core focus is innovation and support and our customers’ happiness reflects the level of ingenuity and strong impact our development efforts have had,” said Vince Furey, CRO at OpenClose. “I am particularly pleased to receive validation of our very hands-on, boutique-style customer support culture. Scoring second-to-none with 100% effective ratings in both help desk and overall customer support is a terrific accomplishment for our support team. We’re elated that our solution scored so well and appreciate the hard work that STRATMOR Group invested to make the Technology Insight Study happen.”

OpenClose had the highest Overall Satisfaction rating out of all LOS vendors surveyed in the mortgage industry, scoring 9.7 out of 10, had a perfect 100 Lender Loyalty Score™, and it is the only LOS provider that had zero outages reported. In the POS category, OpenClose scored higher than any vendor for Overall Satisfaction at 9.4 out of 10 and had the best Lender Loyalty Score™ with 86 out of 100.

The new STRATMOR Technology Insight Study also included a section that covered front-end digital mortgage solutions. STRATMOR’s analysis of the Lender Loyalty Score™ for these systems shows OpenClose as the number one vendor in Overall Satisfaction. Key observations in the survey found that the most important lender perceived benefits were faster cycle times, increased borrower satisfaction and greater task and workflow automation.

Lastly, OpenClose’s DecisionAssist™ product and pricing engine scored the highest in Overall Satisfaction and also touted a perfect 100 for its Lender Loyalty Score™.

“JP Kelly and I started OpenClose to innovate mortgage banking solutions, solve pain points and generally make the process faster, better, and cheaper,” said Jason Regalbuto, the company’s CEO and CTO. “With the dedication of an outstanding team of professionals with extensive mortgage experience and wonderful customers, we have achieved our goal. Seeing the customer satisfaction results in the STRATMOR report is a tremendous validation of 20 years of hard work. There's no stopping us now.”

OpenClose recently broke new ground with the launch of the mortgage industry’s only solution provided by a single vendor that offers a comprehensive Digital Mortgage POS solution consolidated with an end-to-end, multi-channel LOS that is completely browser-based. The unique solution removes multiple vendors, contracts and pricing models to dramatically reduce loan-manufacturing costs while also providing a more streamlined workflow. It takes the borrower experience to new heights and provides newfound back-office efficiencies.

About OpenClose:

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida, OpenClose® is a leading enterprise-class, multi-channel loan origination system (LOS), POS digital mortgage and fintech provider that cost effectively delivers its digital platform on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis. The company provides a variety of innovative, 100 percent web-based solutions for lenders, banks, credit unions, and conduit aggregators. OpenClose’s core solution, LenderAssist™, is comprehensive loan origination software that is completely engineered by OpenClose using the same code base from the ground up. The company offers a RESTful API suite that standardizes system-to-system integrations, making them easier to develop, quicker to implement and more cost effective. OpenClose provides lending organizations with full control of their data and creates a truly seamless workflow for complete automation and compliance adherence. For more information, visit https://www.openclose.com/ or call (561) 655-6418.

About STRATMOR Group:

Founded in 1985, STRATMOR Group has, since inception, focused exclusively on making the mortgage business better for lenders and the borrowers they serve. Today, we are a data-driven advisory that guides our lenders and vendor clients alike to make smart strategic decisions, solve complex challenges, streamline operations, improve profitability and accelerate growth. For more information, visit https://www.stratmorgroup.com/.

 

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DENVER, Feb. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- MountainView Financial Solutions, a Situs company and a leading advisor to the financial services industry, today announced that it has expanded its asset valuation solution to include Enhanced Daily Marks for a range of hard-to-value Level 2 and Level 3 assets. This further strengthens MountainView's pricing and valuation offering, expanding the support provided to investors, mutual funds, REITs, investment advisors and secured lenders.

MountainView's Enhanced Daily Marks go beyond the standard daily mark familiar to the industry and include transparency about the details underlying inputs and assumptions used to determine value. While the analysis provided is in-depth and sophisticated, the final report is intuitive, enabling the user to explain the results to investors and auditors.

"When it comes to valuation, we've always maintained that high-quality, detailed information and clear insights are essential to the final deliverable," said Brian Dunn, managing director of MountainView's loan valuation team. "Many will simply deliver the final determination of value as a number, but in our experience and practice, the underlying details paired with an intuitive report offer clients a valuation that checks all the boxes: it is in-depth, defensible and transparent."

MountainView's Enhanced Daily Marks are available for residential and commercial loans, marketplace lending (MPL) loans, asset-backed securities (ABS), residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) and collateralized loan obligations (CLO). This solution provides an additional tool for clients as they make investment decisions on loan and structured finance securities, bringing clarity in the midst of continued economic uncertainty that is adding layers of complexity for asset valuation.

"When market dynamics are difficult to pin down, as they are today, more frequent marks become critical for institutional clients," said Chris Kennedy, managing director at MountainView Financial Solutions. "Moreover, increasing consumer debt, a flat yield curve and uncertainty around the stability of some complex asset classes – specifically, MPL loans – is creating more demand for detailed valuations, which is really our bread and butter."

ABOUT MOUNTAINVIEW FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS, A SITUS COMPANY 
MountainView Financial Solutions (www.mviewfs.com), a leading advisor to the financial services industry, delivers rigorous and objective analysis, data-driven insights and client-centric services that help business leaders Climb Higher™ by better identifying, quantifying and managing credit and interest rate risk exposure and optimizing balance sheet management. Fueled by deep industry knowledge and unparalleled access to valuable market and industry data, MountainView delivers a more holistic view of risk and opportunity that enables clients to make informed and confident decisions. MountainView currently serves more than 600 active clients in banking, insurance, lending, servicing and secondary market and securitization.  MountainView delivers valuations on more than $50 billion in loans and more than 3,000 unique bond CUSIPs to a broad client base of market participants.

In 2018, Situs, a leader in commercial real estate underwriting, servicing and valuation, acquired MountainView Financial Solutions. The combined resources and expertise of the two entities are a value-add for institutional investor clients, strengthening overall valuation capabilities and enabling more in-depth, transparent and timely valuations.

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