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I came across a report from CoreLogic the other day that said home equity loan lending increased to its highest level since 2008.Whenever anyone hears the date “2008,” they immediately think of the housing bubble in the early 2000s.After all, that’s when the housing market went absolutely sideways after the mortgage market imploded.It’s the year we all use now as a barometer to determine if we’re back to those unsustainable times, which can only mean one thing: incoming crisis.However, nuance is important here and I’m going to tell you why the numbers from 2008 and the numbers from 2024 aren’t quite the same.First Let’s Add Some ContextCoreLogic economist Archana Pradhan noted that home equity loan lending (not HELOCs) grew to the highest point since the first half of 2008 during the first two quarters of 2024.During the first half of this year, mortgage lenders originated more than 333,000 home equity loans totaling roughly $23.6 billion.For comparison sake, lenders originated $29.9 billion in home equity loans during the first half of 2008, just before the housing market began to crash.It was the last big year for mortgage lending before the bottom fell out. For reference, home equity lending totaled just $6.4 billion in 2009 and barely surpassed $5 billion annually up until 2021.Part of the reason it fell off a cliff was due to credit conditions becoming frozen pretty much overnight.Banks and lenders went out of business, property values plummeted, unemployment increased, and there was simply no home equity to tap.Once the housing market did recover, home equity lending remained subdued because lenders didn’t participate as they once had.In addition, volume was low because first mortgage rates were also so low.Thanks to the Fed’s mortgage-backed securities (MBS) buying spree, known as Quantitative Easing (QE), mortgage rates hit all-time lows.The popular 30-year fixed went as low as 2.65% in early 2021, per Freddie Mac. This meant there wasn’t really much reason to open a second mortgage.You could go with a cash out refinance instead and secure a lot of really cheap money with a 30-year loan term.That’s exactly what homeowners did, though once first mortgage rates jumped in early 2022, we saw the opposite effect.So-called mortgage rate lock-in became a thing, whereby homeowners with mortgage rates ranging from sub-2% to 4% were dissuaded from refinancing. Or selling for that matter.This led to an increase in home equity lending as homeowners could borrow without interrupting their low first mortgage.What About Inflation Since 2008?Now let’s compare the two totals and factor in inflation. First off, $29.9 billion is still well above $23.6 billion. It’s about 27% higher.And that’s just comparing nominal numbers that aren’t inflation-adjusted. If we really want to compare apples-to-apples, we need to consider the value of money over the past 16 years.In reality, $24 billion today would only be worth about $16.7 billion in 2008, per the CPI Inflation Calculator.That would make the 2024 first half total more on par with the 2001-2004 years, before the mortgage industry went absolutely haywire and threw common sense underwriting out the door.Simply put, while it might be the highest total since 2008, it’s not as high as it looks.On top of that, home equity levels are now the highest on record. So the amount that is being tapped is a drop in the bucket in comparison.In 2008, it was common to take out a second mortgage up to 100% combined loan to value (CLTV).That meant if home prices dipped even a little, the homeowner would fall into a negative equity position.Today, the typical homeowner has a super low loan-to-value ratio (LTV) thanks to much more prudent underwriting standards.Generally, most lenders won’t go beyond 80% CLTV, leaving in place a sizable equity cushion for the borrowers who do elect to tap their equity today.There’s Also Been Very Little Cash Out RefinancingLastly, we need to consider the mortgage market overall. As noted, many homeowners are grappling with mortgage rate lock-in.They aren’t touching their first mortgages. The only game in town if you want to tap your equity today is a second mortgage, such as a home equity loan or HELOC.So it’s natural that volume has increased as first-mortgage lending has plummeted. Think of it like a seesaw.With very few (to practically no) borrowers electing to disturb their first mortgage, it’s only natural to see an increase in second mortgage lending.Back in 2008, cash out refinancing was huge AND home equity lending was rampant. Imagine if nobody was doing refis back then.How high do you think home equity lending would have gotten then? It’s scary to think about.Now I’m not going to sit here and say there isn’t more risk in the housing market as a result of increased home equity lending.Of course there is more risk when homeowners owe more and have higher monthly debt payments.But to compare it to 2008 would be an injustice for the many reasons listed above. Before creating this site, I worked as an account executive for a wholesale mortgage lender in Los Angeles. My hands-on experience in the early 2000s inspired me to begin writing about mortgages 18 years ago to help prospective (and existing) home buyers better navigate the home loan process. 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Mortgage rates keep climbing on signs of economic strength and while that clouds the outlook for home buying somewhat, there is a silver lining, according to Freddie Mac.The 12 basis-point weekly gain brought the average 30-year fixed rate to 6.44% during the week ended Oct. 17. That increase was significant but not as large as the previous week's, which was the largest since April. It also still leaves the most common loan type with a rate lower than a year ago, when it was 7.63%. on the week but was down from 6.92% a year earlier. Similarly, the 15-year fixed rate mortgage jumped 22 basis points to 5.63% on the week, but it was down from 6.92% in 2023."Compared to a year ago, rates are more than one percentage point lower and potential homebuyers can stand to benefit, especially by shopping around," Freddie Mac Chief economist Sam Khater said in a press release.In line with Khater's read on the market, reports on loan application activity from the Mortgage Bankers Association show borrower interest has died down on a near-term basis as financing costs have climbed, but it's stronger than it was in 2023."Three consecutive weeks of increasing mortgage rates have slowed borrower demand for mortgages — especially for refinances," MBA President and CEO Bob Broeksmit said in a press statement."Mortgage applications fell for the third straight week, led by a 26 percent drop in refinance activity," he continued. "More rate volatility and application swings are likely in the coming weeks, but the good news is that applications are still running above year-ago levels when rates were much higher."The current rate environment creates a mixed outlook for housing, said Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow Home Loans, in a press statement."A strong economy also means smaller and potentially fewer Federal Reserve rate cuts. On one hand a strong labor market is good for potential home buyers. On the other hand, it means mortgage rates aren't likely to decline," Divounguy said.

Better Home & Finance has rolled out an artificial intelligence voice assistant dubbed Betsy, it announced Thursday.The voicebot, which was launched in beta mode in August, can help customers get answers to mortgage application inquiries, call them back if they abandon an application and ask them about the weather, while it connects borrowers to a loan officer.Betsy took nine months to develop and is built on the company's proprietary Tinman loan origination system. Its main goal is to keep potential borrowers on track while filling out their loan applications.Vishal Garg, the CEO of Better, wouldn't disclose the monetary investment of building such a system out, but said it would be worth it in the long run."We think the return is going to be extraordinary," said Garg. "While the investment in Betsy and the time and energy we've spent on it is extremely costly upfront, we believe it will enable us to serve 10 times more customers." Garg pointed out that Betsy can also contact borrowers from lead referral sites such as Lendingtree, Credit Karma, Nerdwallet and Bankrate."Frequently the customer is most ready to transact when they're submitting their information on one of those platforms," he claimed. "Traditionally it would take minutes for our loan officers to contact the customer by which point in time they're out doing other things, so we needed something that could contact hundreds or thousands of consumers whose leads are generated, so Betsy is able to reach consumers right at the time they're most interested."Garg says that since consumers have already provided some part of their information, Betsy contacting them won't be in violation of soon to be implemented robocall restrictions."Betsy is an intelligent loan assistant that is asking the consumer for the pieces of data that are missing, and the consumer has provided consent to be reached out and started an application, so it's not a robocall to someone who's not expecting it." Better's CEO noted the company experimented with AI chatbots, similar to what many competitors have introduced on their websites, but that borrowers don't seem to be fans."The chatbots simply don't work," he claimed. "We've tested chatbots before, and consumers don't like them because the latency is too long. And then when it doesn't know the answer, it's not able to transfer it to a person who actually does." "We recognize that consumers are far more comfortable interacting on the phone than they are through a chatbot and so we raced ahead and skipped it, keeping in mind how we can use true generative AI," added Garg. "[We] started thinking about how we can build the first voice assistant for the mortgage industry." The voice assistant was built using large language models, "which have been fine tuned and taught based on all the data we have on our tinman platform, plus the underwriting guidelines across 32 mortgage investors" the CEO said."The answers are driven by generative AI and are natural. It is not scripted. It's fine tuned to follow pathways to get the missing information that's what helps us become faster, but the responses are true generative AI," he claimsSome industry stakeholders have previously expressed skepticism about AI voice assistants in the mortgage space, pointing out that there are no products out there yet that truly understand the financial services space and can be used with confidence."The models are not yet in a place yet where you can offer real customer service," said  Jason Bressler, chief technology officer at United Wholesale Mortgage, in a previous interview.Others have expressed worries about regulatory hurdles and data privacy concerns.

United Wholesale Mortgage is offering another aggressive promotion for borrowers seeking refinances.The leading lender's Conventional Cash-Out 90 allows homeowners to access up to 89.99% loan-to-value on their homes in a cash-out refi without obtaining mortgage insurance. The product, available immediately, is the only such offering in today's mortgage market, the company said. An MI credit enhancement is required on loans with LTVs exceeding 80%, should they be sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In a past no-MI promotion for purchase loans, UWM said it wouldn't sell such loans to government-sponsored enterprises. UWM did not disclose how it would handle the loans. The product is intended to allow borrowers to take advantage of rising equity levels, fueled by soaring home prices in recent years. Customers must have a FICO score of at least 680 and the refi must be for primary homes with 30-year fixed terms. The promo is also only available for conforming loan limits. UWM was among the first lenders to raise its conforming loan limits for the new year ahead of a government announcement, and is offering the largest limit for a one-unit property at $803,500.It's the second refi-related promo the Michigan-based megalender has offered in the past two months. In September, UWM unveiled Refi75, which gives borrowers a 75 basis point incentive on any note rate for conventional and government-backed loans. That offering is good for rate locks through Oct. 31. The company has also deployed an artificial intelligence-powered tool to notify borrowers of refi opportunities. Fading mortgage rates this summer spurred a mini-refi boom in August and September, although rates have since climbed again and have dampened more recent refi application activity.UWM with its massive coffers has been able to offer other unique portfolio products, like a 0% down payment purchase product which raised eyebrows this summer. The lender emphasized that the product was developed under federal guidelines much stricter than those that allowed similar, riskier 0% down products in years prior. 

Texas Capital Bancshares in Dallas began an operational overhaul in 2021.Courtesy of Texas Capital Bancshares This news is developing. Please check back here for updates.Texas Capital Bancshares took its first quarterly loss since the bank overhauled its management and set out on a massive strategic turnaround three years ago, but the Dallas-based company says all is going to plan.The $61.3 million loss in the third quarter came as no surprise, following a recent announcement that efforts to meet ambitious 2025 profitability goals would mean a big one-time cost to earnings. The bank's moves to restructure its balance sheet, lay off staff and buy a loan portfolio slashed profits for the period, but CEO Rob Holmes maintains that Texas Capital is still on its way to hitting the targets he set when he took over in 2021."We achieved significant financial milestones this quarter as our multi-year transformation is increasingly delivering financial outcomes consistent with realized success delivering our proven and differentiated strategy," Holmes said in the Thursday morning earnings release.The bank's bottom-line blow was driven by its sale of $1.24 billion of lower-yielding securities and subsequent purchase of $1.06 billion in higher-yielding ones, which led to a $139 million after-tax loss. Core operations, excluding one-time costs like the balance sheet restructuring and expenses from layoffs, beat analyst expectations as net interest income and revenues from fees grew. Texas Capital's adjusted net income rose year-over-year from $61.7 million to $78.7 million. Adjusted earnings per share of $1.59 beat the consensus analyst estimate of 95 cents per share, per S&P.The bank also expects the long-term payoff to be worth the hits it took. Texas Capital projects the costly balance sheet repositioning to begin "notably improving forward profitability metrics" in the fourth quarter and contributing an incremental $35 million to $40 million in net interest income on an annualized basis. Net interest income of $240.1 million last quarter showed a mild rise from $232.1 million in the same period last year. The bank also grew loans about 6% year-over-year, primarily due to its previously announced purchase of a $332 million health care loan portfolio at the end of last quarter.Layoffs that the bank disclosed last month also cost some $6 million in expenses for the quarter, but Holmes said at the time that the cuts were "probably the last of the transformational journey efficiencies that we'll realize." Texas Capital estimated that its actions would help curb non-interest expenses by $30 million."Our current business momentum coupled with our sustained leading capital and liquidity levels positions us well to effectively drive execution through 2025," Holmes said in the earnings release.Still, the bank reduced its guidance for annual revenue from low- to mid-single-digit percent growth, now projecting low-single-digit growth. Analysts don't have overwhelming confidence in the bank's ability to meet next year's goals — a 1.1% return on assets and 12.5% return on tangible common equity. So far this year, those numbers were .46% and 4.1%, respectively.Since the bank's strategic update last month, Texas Capital's stock price has run up some 27%, closing at $78.46 Wednesday. Ben Gerlinger, an analyst at Citi, held the bank at a sell rating in a Thursday morning note."With the known guidance of roughly flat expense in 2025 (off of 2024 base), a stronger [net interest margin] predicated on continued strength in mortgage warehouse, and variability in investment banking revenue – we think shares likely take a breather at current levels," Gerlinger said.

Adobe Stock This news is developing. Please check back here for updates.M&T Bank in Buffalo, New York, said it continued to diversify its loan portfolio during the third quarter, growing consumer and business lending while allowing commercial real estate credits to decline.Net income rose to $721 million, or $4.02 a share, from $690 million, or $3.98 a share, a year ago.The $212 billion-asset regional bank said its average loans and leases increased 2% from a year earlier — and slightly from the prior quarter — as its commercial and industrial credits grew. This included financial and insurance industry customers, motor vehicle and recreational finance dealers and service industry clients. The bank also grew its consumer portfolio, with advances in its recreational finance and automobile lending.The growth in those areas more than offset a 15% year-over-year decline in CRE loans. The bank has been consciously scaling back its CRE footprint for several quarters, seeking to reduce its concentration in the sector. The CRE portfolio still makes up about 21% of the bank's loans."M&T's positive earnings momentum … positioned the franchise for a strong finish to 2024," Chief Financial Officer Daryl Bible said in a press release Thursday.M&T and many of its peers have retreated from CRE amid the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in increased vacancies in urban office, multifamily and retail properties. The Federal Reserve's high interest rate policy of the past couple years compounded matters by making loan payments higher for landlords. This led to increased loan delinquency rates.Bank CRE mortgage delinquencies continued an upward climb through the second quarter. That extended a trend that began in the final quarter of 2022, according to Trepp analyst Emily Yue. The overall delinquency rate rose to 2.01% in the second quarter from 1.83% the previous quarter, "reflecting mounting pressure on the commercial real estate sector," Yue said.In comments at a September conference, however, Bible said Federal Reserve interest rate cuts would lower borrowing costs and likely boost loan demand in coming quarters. This could also lower costs for CRE borrowers with adjustable-rate loans and minimize the likelihood of credits souring. Lower rates could gradually reduce banks' deposit costs, too, supporting the margin between what banks pay for funding and earn on lending.The Fed cut its benchmark rate by 50 basis points last month and signaled that several more reductions were likely later this year and next year.Increased lending that is funded with more favorably priced deposits would bolster M&T's and other banks' net interest income and potentially overall profitability.M&T reported net interest income of $1.73 billion for the third quarter, down from $1.78 billion a year earlier. Its net interest margin was 3.62%, up 3 basis points from the prior quarter but down 17 basis points from a year earlier. The bank said its nonaccrual loans as a percentage of loans outstanding declined to 1.42% from 1.50% the previous quarter and 1.77% a year earlier.Provisions for credit losses fell to $120 million from $150 million a year ago.

This news is developing. Please check back here for updates.Cleveland-based KeyCorp posted a third-quarter loss on a one-time charge but saw its core profits jump 9%, as its much-hoped-for rebound in net interest income started to bear fruit.KeyCorp did suffer a major one-time hit due to a sale last month of low-yielding bonds, part of a recent deal in which Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia took a small stake in KeyCorp. The Cleveland bank took a one-time $737 million charge from selling the bonds, swinging the company's quarterly earnings into negative territory with a $447 million loss.Excluding the impact of the one-time transaction, KeyCorp's profits rose to $290 million in the quarter, compared with $266 million in the same quarter a year earlier. Adjusted diluted earnings per share in the quarter were 30 cents."Underlying results were solid as relationship clients, deposits and business-related fees all demonstrated continued momentum," Chief Executive Chris Gorman said in a news release, which also pointed to strong client pipelines and "further expected net interest income tailwinds in the quarters ahead." The bank's net interest income totaled $964 million, up 4.4% from a year ago.Continued improvement in net interest income would be welcome for KeyCorp, whose profits underperformed several other regional banks last year. The company had saddled itself with a relatively large pool of low-yielding bonds, dragging down its profits as it collected small interest payments on them. Selling some $7 billion of those bonds was no doubt painful, but it's given KeyCorp the flexibility to reinvest fresh cash into higher-paying investments and its core business: lending. The bank was able to do so thanks to the initial $821 million investment it got from Scotiabank last month. The Canadian bank now owns a 4.9% stake in KeyCorp.A follow-on $2 billion investment from Scotiabank is awaiting approval from the Federal Reserve. Scotiabank's ownership of KeyCorp would rise to 14.9% under the deal, which the companies expect to close in the first quarter of 2025. The deal specifies that Scotiabank cannot increase its ownership above 19.9% for five years, though some analysts wonder whether the Canadian bank is setting up for buying the bank in full. Doing so would give it more heft in the United States, where its Canadian rivals have a major retail footprint.In the meantime, KeyCorp has said the deal will enable the bank to be more "front-footed" as it looks to finance its clients' growth.It had been scaling back its operations slightly over the past year. Average loans at KeyCorp fell to $106.2 billion during the quarter, down from $117.6 billion a year earlier. The company attributed the drop to its "planned balance sheet optimization efforts" along with "tepid client loan demand." The company has seen more momentum on its fee-driving operations. Pipelines for investment banking and debt placement deals "remain near record levels," Gorman said. Wealth management and commercial payments services are also showing strength, he said.KeyCorp also recorded $154 million in net loan-charge-offs, more than double the $71 million it saw in the year-ago quarter. The company also said its nonperforming loans rose to 0.69% of total loans, up from 0.39% in the year-ago quarter.

Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg This news is developing. Please check back here for updates.Truist Financial reaped the benefit of a bounceback in investment banking activity during the third quarter, with such fees surging 80% year over year and giving a lift to the bank's profits.The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company on Thursday reported investment banking and trading income of $332 million for the period ended Sept. 30, up from $185 million in the year-ago quarter. Total fee income climbed about 11% from a year ago, due to increased bond and equity originations and higher structured real estate income, Truist said in a press release.Investment banking revenue has been gaining momentum across the industry, including at Truist, which has so far logged an uptick in such fees during every quarter of this year. The boost contributed to the super-regional bank's earnings. Net income rose to $1.4 billion, or 99 cents a share, from $1.2 billion, or 80 cents a share, during the year-ago period. Earnings per share topped the estimate of 92 cents a share that was predicted by analysts polled by S&P.Revenue totaled $5.1 billion, up from $4.9 billion in the same quarter last year.Expenses declined 5.4% from a year ago due to decreases in areas such as personnel and restructuring charges, Truist said. It slightly tweaked its guidance for full-year 2024 adjusted expenses, saying it now expects those to be "less than flat" compared with the prior year. Adjusted expenses exclude the amortization of intangibles, restructuring charges and other selected items, the company said.Truist reiterated its guidance for full-year adjusted revenues, which are expected to decline between 0.5% and 1.5% for the entire year. Adjusted revenues include securities gains or losses.Provisions for credit losses fell 9.9% to $448 million. "The decrease in the current quarter provision expense primarily reflects a lower allowance build, partially offset by additional reserves related to Hurricane Helene," the company said.Truist, which had $519 billion of assets through the end of September, "continued to see solid momentum" in its core banking businesses during the third quarter, "as evidenced by strong year-over-year growth in investment banking and trading revenue and continued expense discipline," Chief Executive Officer Bill Rogers said in the press release.Truist has been on a performance-improvement path for several quarters. In September, it reset its expectations for a key profitability metric, return on tangible common equity and said it is now aiming to achieve a mid-teens return on tangible common equity over the next three years.That is lower than what the company set out to achieve when it was formed in 2019 by the merger of BB&T and SunTrust Banks. At that time, it aimed for a return on tangible common equity in the low-20s, but it only surpassed 20% one time in the years since, in 2022.The reset was necessary due to the completion of the sale of Truist Insurance Holdings earlier this year, and the subsequent capital infusion that Truist received from the deal, executives have said.Truist's return on tangible common equity was 13.8% in the third quarter. That compares with 10.4% in the second quarter, 16.3% in the first quarter and 18.9% for all of 2023. Truist's shares fell in pre-market trading before rising. Year to date, shares are up about 21%.

Officials at Ginnie Mae and other agencies are debating ways they may be able to get more authority to address government-related mortgage risks involving nonbanks, and one trade group official thinks the answer is a federal position with broader oversight over housing.This would address one of the challenges for Ginnie, a guarantor for securitized mortgages other agencies back at the loan level, which is that it works with multiple public entities. It's a challenge shared by independent, nonbank mortgage bankers, a trade group executive noted."We are frustrated by a very complex web of regulations and regulatory bodies that is overlapping, confusing and ultimately, we think, ineffective," said Bob Broeksmit, president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association, at a Ginnie Mae conference on Tuesday.The situation calls for "a coordinator at the White House level, whose job it was to look at all of the different entities that have to do with housing and housing finance regulation," Broeksmit said.Broeksmit has been trying to revive the idea, which was suggested previously by the late former MBA chief David Stevens and some lawmakers in the subprime mortgage crisis, to address more recent concerns like the 80%-plus concentration of nonbank risk at Ginnie.While there's no single coordinator for housing as Broeksmit and others have envisioned, there is a Financial Stability Oversight Council, which recently studied nonbank risk and called on congress to give entities like Ginnie and the Federal Housing Finance Agency more authority.Broeksmit suggests a single individual that has oversight across multiple agencies could work toward the same end.When asked for an example of how a "housing czar" might come into play, he said such an individual could have helped manage the issue of nonbank risks associated with the original version of so-called Basel III endgame capital rules for depositories.Those rules are now going through a re-proposal process. The original plan threatened to dampen bank interest in providing certain financing lines to non depositories and in buying servicing that nonbanks often sell. (There also was some concern in the original proposal regarding the impact on low downpayment mortgages, but a Federal Reserve official has said the revision will address this.)A housing coordinator might have seen the potential unintended consequences for nonbanks earlier in the process and accounted for them before the original proposal was drawn up."It seems as though, if there were an individual empowered to look at all this stuff, they could say, 'All right, I understand that there may be reasons that your agency is pursuing this, but in the scheme of things, that pushes this in the wrong direction, and is there a better way to approach it?" Broeksmit said.When asked if that individual might also lack the kind of authority that's frustrated some existing agency officials, the MBA chief said the housing coordinator would have some stemming from the President.One concern that Ed DeMarco, president of the Housing Policy Council, told conference attendees he had about such a position would be related to a situation where the coordinator had was more interested in fulfilling a particular aim than being impartial."The famous saying in Washington is that personnel is policy, and so whoever gets into this coordinating role, if we were to have something like that, I would certainly hope that it's someone that's not there primarily because they have an agenda," said DeMarco."They may have an agenda of increasing homeownership. They may have an agenda of getting Fannie and Freddie out of conservatorship. They may have an agenda of something else, right? That's not going to result in effective coordination," he added.

A year of upheaval for New York Community Bank is culminating with a corporate name change, as it fully takes on the branding of a company it acquired in 2022.Directors at the regional bank approved an amendment to change its name to Flagstar Financial. While under previous leadership, NYCB acquired Flagstar Bank, a company with extensive mortgage lending and servicing operations at the time, in 2021, closing on the deal a year later. The rebranding takes effect following the close of business on Oct. 25, with the publicly traded company to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under new ticker symbol FLG on Oct. 28.     Consumers will likely see little change with the new corporate moniker, after NYCB previously converted all of its existing branch locations to Flagstar offices after the acquisition. "This name change is a continuation of those efforts and unifies the company and our vision into a single brand." New York Community President and CEO Joseph Otting said in a press release. "We are excited to announce our new holding company name and stock symbol, marking another milestone in our ongoing transformation. Over the past six months, the board of directors and management have made remarkable progress in laying a strong foundation for the future," Otting said. Representatives from NYCB had not responded to a request for comment on the potential impact to its mortgage business prior to article publication. Shortly after NYCB took over Flagstar, the bank reduced home lending operations of its newly acquired company due to expectations of an industry slowdown. For several years prior to the merger, Flagstar began a mortgage-specific technology accelerator program, which continues to operate. On the corporate and investor relations side, the streamlining of the company under the Flagstar name could represent a more positive strategy development as New York Community closes out the year. After analysts expressed concerns over the concentration of multifamily and other commercial loans within its portfolio, the Long Island, New York-based bank took hits to both reputation and stock price, with the bad news quickly multiplying in the first three months of this year.Poorer-than-expected earnings from the fourth quarter of 2023 drove New York Community's stock value to plummet in the immediate aftermath of the report early this year, later followed by major leadership shakeups, including the ouster of former president and CEO Thomas Cangemi. Further scrutiny pointed to flaws in internal processes elevating risk at the bank during its period of rapid growth, when it also acquired assets of Signature Bank. A capital infusion coming from Otting and former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin helped save New York Community, with the former ascending to the top leadership roles, while other former key leaders exited. The new leadership warned 2024 would continue to pose challenges for the bank. Among moves made later in the year in its restructuring efforts was the third-quarter sale of its residential mortgage servicing portfolio to Mr. Cooper. At the time, Otting cited the operational risk posed by servicing behind the decision to offload the portfolio, which also came days after New York Community sold almost $6 billion worth of mortgage warehouse loans to JPMorganChase. At the close of the second quarter, NYCB held over $119 billion in assets and $82 billion of loans in its books. The bank will announce third-quarter results on Oct. 24. New York Community saw its stock price head higher following the late Tuesday announcement, rising by 1.7% to begin Wednesday morning trading. After ending Tuesday at $11.84, NYCB opened at $12.05 and then continued up throughout most of the day to close 4.6% higher at $12.39.Before NYCB's troubles accelerated early this year, its stock sat at $31.14 just prior to its fourth-quarter 2023 earnings call in late January.