Ellie Mae Inc. has decided to move its infrastructure to Amazon Web Services—with the intention of rebuilding its core applications, creating new digital products that support lenders needs for efficiency. Amazon Web Services is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms.

Ellie Mae will use AWS services, including computing, storage, database, and more to develop new ways of delivering the true-digital mortgage and simplifying the loan process for its customers and partners. Ellie Mae built a company-wide data lake on AWS using Amazon Simple Storage Service to better understand, personalize, and further automate digital lending.

The aim is for Ellie Mae will become a more agile organization, reducing operating costs, and accelerating its pace of innovation so that it can better serve customers including banks, credit unions, and mortgage lending institutions of all sizes. The migration to AWS is designed to make it easier for Ellie Mae to innovate on the fly and accelerate its time to market for new loan management features.

“We process more than a third of mortgage applications in the United States, and use AWS to help us deliver on our mission of the true digital mortgage, so lenders can achieve compliance, quality, and efficiency,” said Satheesh Ravala, SVP for cloud engineering and operations at Ellie Mae. “We are confident that their services will continue to give us what we need to be nimble, innovate, achieve results, and cut costs while we grow and expand our business well into the future.”

Driving the move to AWS are capabilities that Amazon contends will generate efficiency and increase automation across the origination process, “so that lenders can process applications, deliver decisions, and provide funding to borrowers quickly,” said Mike Clayville, vice president for worldwide commercial sales at AWS.

Mortgage regulators have proposed that the threshold for residential real estate transactions requiring an appraisal be raised to $400,000.

The Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. developed the proposal. They think the increase, from the $250,000 current level set in 1995, could provide relief from the time and cost associated with completing residential real-estate transactions, and without posing a threat to the safety and soundness of financial institutions.

This proposal responds, in part, to criticisms the current exemption level for residential transactions had not kept pace with price appreciation in the residential real estate market.

In lieu of an appraisal, the proposal would require that residential real estate transactions exempted by the threshold obtain an evaluation consistent with safe and sound banking practices. Evaluations provide an estimate of the market value of real estate but could be less burdensome than appraisals because the agencies’ appraisal regulations do not require evaluations to be prepared by state licensed or certified appraisers.

In addition, evaluations are typically less detailed and costly than appraisals. Evaluations have been required for transactions exempted from the appraisal requirement by the current $250,000 residential threshold since the 1990s.

The agencies received these comments during both the recent Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act review process and the commercial real estate transactions appraisal rule making process. That process resulted in a final rule, issued in April 2018, raising the appraisal threshold for commercial real estate transactions to $500,000, from $250,000.

Also, the proposal also would incorporate the rural residential appraisal exemption in the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act into the list of exempt transactions and require evaluations for these exempt transactions. In addition, the proposal would require institutions to review appraisals for compliance with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, as mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

New home purchases decreased 2.1 percent from a year ago, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association Application Survey for October. The performance in September increased 11 percent compared with September 2018. This change does not include any adjustment for typical seasonal patterns.

“While we have seen some monthly swings in new home sales in 2018, the year-to-date average sales pace is around seven percent higher than the same period in 2017,” said Joel Kan, associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting for the MBA. “Additionally, the average loan size for a new home purchase application, at around $332,000, was at its lowest since July 2017. This is potentially a sign that there has been some additional inventory in the new home market, and that the rapid price growth in some geographies is starting to ease.”

MBA estimates new single-family home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 673,000 units in October 2018, based on data from the survey. The new home sales estimate is derived using mortgage application information from the survey, as well as assumptions regarding market coverage and other factors.

The seasonally adjusted estimate for October is an increase of 4.7 percent from the September pace of 643,000 units. On an unadjusted basis, the MBA estimates that there were 53,000 new home sales in October 2018, an increase of 6 percent from 50,000 new home sales in September.

By product type, conventional loans composed 70.9 percent of loan applications, FHA loans composed 17.1 percent, RHS/USDA loans composed 0.7 percent and VA loans composed 11.2 percent. The average loan size of new homes decreased from $333,086 in September to $331,732 in October.

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.

Figure Technologies Inc. has developed a way for baby boomers to convert their home equity into retirement funds. With Figure Home Advantage, their home is sold and leased backed to the seller locking in any gains on the property.

"We're building solutions to help Americans cope with this looming retirement issue. With rising interest rates, cash-out refinancing is an increasingly painful way to meet cash flow needs. Yet for homeowners nearing or already in retirement, home equity may be the most important source of money they have to support retirement," said Wendy Harrington, chief marketing officer at Figure.

Here’s how it works. Figure buys the home and grants the seller a lease that renews annually, leaving the homeowner in charge of how long they stay. Homeowners get their proceeds in one lump sum to bolster their nest egg, cover their expenses or fund what matters most to them. Figure pays and handles property taxes, homeowner's insurance and ongoing maintenance of the home.

In addition, here are additional points to consider:

• Access more cash: In a typical sale-leaseback agreement, 80 to 90 percent of the home's value commonly goes directly to the homeowner. In contrast, reverse mortgages offer 35 to 60 percent; and cash-out refinances, which are costly now that rates have risen.
• Lock in housing gains: With housing prices and home equity at all-time highs in many cities across America, it's a good time to lock in gains.
• Increase stability: Participants know how much money they'll receive upfront and how much they'll pay each month in rent, making it easier to budget and plan for the future.
• Manage the unexpected: Unexpected repairs, rising property taxes, and costly maintenance no longer need to throw retirement plans off track, because Figure takes on those responsibilities and costs.
• Enjoy more flexibility and opportunity: While some baby boomers plan to stay in their current homes for many years, others are actively searching for their next destination, options which Figure makes available to them.