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Two, the real-estate investment trust that owns Roundpoint Servicing, is considering more expansive moves for its mortgage business lines as persistent volatility in the capital markets presents a mix of challenges and opportunities for its investments.The company formerly known as Two Harbors Investment Corp. recorded a first quarter loss of $92.24 million under standard accounting principles, compared with net income of $264.95 million the previous quarter. However, Two's comprehensive income was a positive $64.93 million compared to a loss of $1.62 million the previous quarter. The company reported $25.09 million in earnings available for distribution for the latest period, compared to $21.18 million in EAD the previous quarter."While overall spreads have widened in the second quarter, they have been variable day-to-day, and we have actively managed the portfolio and our risk to take advantage of any market dislocations," President and CEO Bill Greenberg said during the company's earnings call.Two's diversification strategyGreenberg said the company's goals for 2025 center on activities that diversify beyond its investments in agency securitizations and mortgage servicing rights.These include "fully scaling" its direct-to-consumer origination platform, an expanded presence in the subservicing market, and product set expansion in second lien, Ginnie Mae and non-agency markets."We view the Roundpoint platform as an expansion of our opportunity set, providing additional benefits for our shareholders," Greenberg said.When asked about the impact of the planned combination of industry giants Rocket Mortgage and Mr. Cooper, Greenberg said he viewed it as most likely to make the bid for MSRs "a bit more competitive that it was at the margins."Greenberg confirmed during the call that William Dellal has been promoted to permanent chief financial officer from acting CFO. Dellal previously had planned to resign but the company announced a change of plans earlier this month.Chief Investment Officer Nick Letica said in a press release there have been upsides for Two as the market's volatility has widened spreads on agency mortgage-backed securities that the REIT invests in and boosted levered returns on the bonds.Outlook on mortgage servicingHe added that the company's investment in mortgage servicing rights should remain stable because its portfolio has lower coupons, protecting it from the risk borrowers will refinance into lower interest rates and cause runoff.Net interest and servicing income improved on a consecutive-quarter basis, rising to a rounded $133 million from $128 million. The mark-to-market loss for the period fell to $9 million from $48 million. Other income, a category that includes earnings from originations, was stable at $1.4 million for both quarters. Operating expenses increased to $47 million from $41 million.The REIT settled flow-sale acquisitions of mortgage servicing rights with an unpaid principal balance of nearly $175 million during the quarter. The REIT reported that after the fiscal period ended, it committed to buy two bulk packages of MSRs with a UPB of $1.7 billion.Analyst consensus was generally that Two's bottom line was weaker than anticipated, but its revenue outperformed expectations and its stock price was wavering but generally trending upward immediately after its earnings call on Tuesday morning.Its shares had opened at $12.30, dropped to $11.70 then rebounded to $12.43 at deadline.

SoFi Technologies, Inc exceeded analysts' expectations across the board in the first quarter of 2025.SoFi posted a net income of $71 million in the three months ended March 31, down 19% from $88 million in the same period last year. Analysts polled by S&P had expected $38 million.SoFi reported $770 million in revenue, up 33% compared with $580 million in the same period a year prior. That number exceeded expectations of analysts polled by S&P, who expected $739 million of revenue for the first quarter. Chief Executive Officer Anthony Noto on the earnings call Tuesday morning said it was the highest net revenue in five quarters."Our strong financial performance is the direct result of our continued investments in brand building and product innovation," Noto said. "These investments attract new members and clients into our digital one-stop-shop ecosystem and lead them to adopt more products over time. This virtuous cycle — which we call our Financial Services Productivity Loop or FSPL — fuels our growth and ultimately our returns as we scale."SoFi reported an increase of 6 cents on a per-share basis, beating analysts' expectations by 100%. Analysts polled by S&P had expected earnings of 3 cents per share.Chief Financial Officer Christopher Lapointe said on the call that SoFi exceeded in every metric guided on its last call and accelerated growth led to "our sixth consecutive profitable quarter."Membership grew 34% to a record 10.9 million users with 800,000 new members. The company also reported 1.2 million new product sales, up 35% from the prior year, to a total of 15.9 million products. The company reported revenue doubling in the financial services segment compared to a year ago to $303 million, which it attributed to strong member adoption of the SoFi Money product as well as expansion of the loan platform business, adjustments for improved user experience in SoFi Invest and expanded partnership with Templum, allowing members access to more investment opportunities.SoFi reported its expanded loan business led to more than $7.25 billion in new loan originations. The company in 2025 finalized deals with Blue Owl, Fortress and Edge Focus and it attributed $1.6 billion in originated loans in the first quarter solely to third party partners. Personal loan originations were up 69% from the first quarter of last year with student loan originations up 59% and home loan originations up 54% compared to the same period.The company was optimistic for the remainder of the year for its loan business with plans to unveil a new personal loan product for prime credit card customers with revolving balances as well as a new student loan refinancing product, SmartStart. SoFi pointed to its aggressive marketing strategy as a reason for increased brand awareness and new customers. More than 20 million viewers watched the inaugural season of "TGL presented by SoFi," a new golf league launched by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy in partnership with the PGA Tour that plays at the SoFi Center. Its SoFi Invest promotion tied to player performance in the playoffs led to "record engagement" for the investment arm, Noto said. The company also recently partnered with the Country Music Association's CMA Fest. "A significant amount of our marketing investment goes towards building the SoFi brand name via broad scale, high reach branded marketing," Noto said. "This investment is centered on building SoFi into a trusted household brand name, which we measure based on unaided brand awareness. Having a strong brand creates a halo effect that makes our performance marketing of each product more efficient. Our unaided brand awareness continued to be very strong through the quarter at 7%."Noto also said the "evolving regulatory landscape" is providing SoFi with "an opportunity to reenter the crypto and blockchain space more comprehensively." He said in addition to letting users invest in cryptocurrencies, the company plans to enter other areas of the sphere in the next six to 24 months, "but potentially much sooner via acquisition or if the changing regulatory landscape allows.""Our aspirations over time are as broad and deep as they are for our existing SoFi business, including developing crypto and blockchain offerings across borrowing, investing, paying and saving in our Technology Platform services for third parties," Noto said.All told, Noto said the company's strategy has delivered "great results" and SoFi decided to increase innovation while increasing its full year guidance."Our value proposition has never been more relevant to the members and clients we serve," Noto said. "We are stepping on the gas to launch new products faster and iterate to improve our existing products at an even more rapid pace. The opportunity in front of us is too massive to risk underinvesting to capture it."

Mortgage borrowers are suing Vanderbilt Mortgage for risky lending, reviving claims the Trump administration dropped against the lender earlier this year. Christopher Stockton of Alabama and Tracy Taylor of Tennessee accuse Vanderbilt of violating the Truth in Lending Act and Regulation Z's minimum underwriting standards. The lender, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway-owned Clayton Homes, has allegedly ignored red flags in underwriting since 2014. The lawsuit filed last week in a Tennessee federal court comes two months after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dropped its TILA complaint against Vanderbilt which was filed in the waning days of the Biden administration. Under acting director Russell Vought, the new-look bureau has dropped enforcement actions against numerous firms and is seeking to revoke a redlining settlement with another mortgage lender. The new complaint was first reported by Law360.Stockton and Taylor's lawsuit repeats prior allegations from CFPB attorneys, specifically that Vanderbilt's residual income model relied on unreasonable calculations. The borrowers said Vanderbilt disregarded evidence of debts in collection and made loans to borrowers who had negative net residual income.In a statement Monday afternoon, Vanderbilt said it intends to vigorously defend itself against the claims. In a January response to the CFPB's lawsuit, the lender called accusations about its underwriting untrue, and said it exceeds legal requirements to assess a borrower's financials.The new plaintiffs said they were unaware of Vanderbilt's poor underwriting practices until the CFPB's Jan. 6 filing. Taylor and Stockton, who applied in 2013 and 2023, respectively, said they both had debt collection actions at the time of their applications and have missed at least one mortgage payment.Their complaint suggests unspecified damages exceeding $5 million, and more than 100 putative class members. Plaintiffs want to bar Vanderbilt from underwriting using its "unlawful Living Expense Estimate."Attorneys for the plaintiffs didn't respond to requests for comment Monday.Vanderbilt, headquartered in Maryville, Tennessee, had $4.03 billion in origination volume in 2024, according to a Richey May database of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. Much of that lending was based in the Southeast, with a leading 18% of production in Georgia. The CFPB dismissed its case against Vanderbilt with prejudice, meaning the lawsuit cannot be refiled. The decision was part of Vought's vision for a dramatically defanged bureau, which includes less oversight of both nonbank lenders and of fair lending practices. The regulator in an April memo said it would leave state regulators to pick up enforcement duties. States in recent years have prosecuted mortgage lenders, and the Ohio attorney general recently sued industry leader United Wholesale Mortgage for alleged predatory business practices.

The 2025 countdown of the National Mortgage News Top Producers list continues by featuring the loan officers ranked 51 to 150.The originators in this portion of the listing did between $35 million and $70 million of volume in 2025.Success in marketing is what helps these originators become Top Producers during 2024 and several provided their plans for 2025."I worked hard to grow relationships every chance I had organically, be that asking listing agents for business, collecting reviews, writing reviews [and] marketing to past customers," said Gabe Winslow of C2 Financial in San Diego.During 2024, targeted digital marketing and referral partnerships played a key role in Jesus Vasquez' success at City Lending in McLean, Virginia. Leveraging social media as well as providing educational content helped to position his business as a trusted advisor. "In 2025, we plan to enhance these strategies by incorporating more video content, customer segmentation, and deeper community engagement to strengthen client relationships and drive business growth," Vasquez said.Amanda Seesa, a vice president and senior loan officer at SWBC Mortgage in Boulder, Colorado, said, "I feel like I increased my branding on social media and I would like to continue that path. I would also like to solidify our brand more across the board."The Top Producers ranked 151-to-250 can be found here, with the listings for Nos. 1-to-50 and the complete list to follow. Other cuts of the data will also appear shortly.

Several individuals are behind a Wisconsin class action lawsuit retroactively seeking recourse after government agencies kept surplus proceeds from sales of their tax-foreclosed former properties, an act the Supreme Court has previously deemed unconstitutional.In the case filed in the Eastern District federal court of Wisconsin, attorneys representing the class allege that local jurisdictions unlawfully garnered hundreds of millions of surplus dollars in equity that belonged to the original homeowners after the properties were sold. The suit includes more than two decades-worth of foreclosure transactions. Listed as defendants are the state of Wisconsin, all 72 of its counties and the city of Milwaukee. While state laws were rewritten in 2022 forbidding governments to retain surpluses from tax-foreclosure sales above the unpaid amount, the decision "came too late for many former Wisconsin property owners and their descendants, whose funds remain seized without recourse," lawyers representing the proposed class said. The state "has not provided any mechanism through which plaintiffs and the class members may recover just compensation for the surplus funds that defendants took prior to April 2, 2022," the suit stated. Instances of sales proceeds retained by local government offices go back as far as January 1989, the attorneys also noted, describing the actions as "a trespass" on plaintiffs' properties.The suit is reminiscent of the "home equity theft" case Tyler v. Hennepin County, in which the Supreme Court found that local officials in Minnesota had unlawfully kept excess amounts after a sale. The plaintiff in that lawsuit first filed the claim in 2020, two years before Wisconsin's law went into effect, following the foreclosure of a condominium unit due to nonpayment of an approximate $15,000 tax lien. Hennepin County later sold the unit for $40,000.Although the case was initially dismissed, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments on appeal and later ruled in favor of the former condo owner with a unanimous decision in 2023, deeming it unconstitutional for local governments to keep the surplus funds from a tax-foreclosure sale. The Minnesota plaintiff's attorneys estimated more than $860 million in surplus proceeds have been retained by states and counties across the country. In the Wisconsin filing, legal counsel for the plaintiff is seeking relief of "equitable restitution" or to place "members of the class in the financial position they would have been in had there been no takings or other unlawful conduct."Last week, the Supreme Court declined to review a 2024 judgment in a Florida case, which would have had broader implications for how Tyler v. Hennepin might be interpreted. The Florida suit involved a homeowner, who claimed his property had been undervalued at the time of the foreclosure sale, thereby denying him any gains. 

Folks on social media love coming up with so-called “hacks” to excite their followers.In the mortgage realm, this typically means highlighting math that seems unbelievable at first.And it usually revolves around paying down a mortgage ahead of schedule, much to the chagrin of the banks.For the record, the banks probably don’t care that much if at all, since these days they’d probably pay you more if you put money in a savings account instead of toward the mortgage.But I digress – let’s look at the latest hot trend, the 2% mortgage hack.What Is the 2% Mortgage Hack?$400k loan @ 6%Original2% HackPayment 1$2,398.20$2,398.20Year 2$2,398.20$2,446.16Year 3$2,398.20$2,495.09Year 5$2,398.20$2,595.90Year 10$2,398.20$2,866.10Year 15$2,398.20$3,164.41Year 20$2,398.20$3,493.77Year 21-30$2,398.20$0 – paid off!In a nutshell, the 2% mortgage hack requires you to increase your mortgage payment 2% each year.This doesn’t mean just paying an extra 2% based on the original monthly payment.Instead, you pay 2% extra in year two, then 2% more on top of the 2% extra in three year, and so on.Every 12 months, your mortgage payment grows larger, based on the number the year before.For example, let’s look at a $400,000 loan amount with a 6% mortgage rate and a 30-year loan term. Pretty common scenario nowadays.If you were to just make the normal, minimum required payment, it’d be $2,398.20.Now imagine starting in year two, you add 2% to that payment. It’s $2,446.16. That’s not a big jump up. It’s about $48 more per month.For most, this would be manageable, and likely wouldn’t require any lifestyle changes or cutting back.That alone wouldn’t do much though. It would merely shorten your loan term to 28 years and six months.However, it would save you nearly $29,000 in interest. Not too shabby.But where the 2% mortgage hack gets interesting is you compound the extra payments each year.So beginning in year three, we add another 2% on top of the increased payment from year two.That puts payments in year three at $2,495.09. In year four, it climbs to $2,544.99. In year five, it’s $2,595.89.Each year, you’re adding 2% from the year prior. You can do this by multiplying the mortgage payment by 1.02 in a calculator.By year 20, the mortgage payment is nearly $3,500 per month, but it is gradual and knocks down the outstanding loan balance a lot faster.What Does the 2% Mortgage Hack Accomplish?In short, the 2% mortgage hack reduces your total interest expense and shortens your mortgage loan term.Many of the posts I’ve seen about it claim it reduces your loan term by 12 to 14 years, but it depends on the math, aka the loan balance and interest rate.The amount of interest saved will also vary based on those inputs, but the general idea is you can significantly reduce your loan term and save on interest.So instead of waiting 30 years to own your home free and clear, you can own it a lot sooner, assuming that’s a goal.And you can pay a lot less interest in the process.In my example, you’d reduce the loan term by about a decade, so 20 years instead of 30.The interest savings from making extra mortgage payments would also reduce your interest expense by about $135,000.Simply put, you’d have a paid off mortgage in about 20 years and save more than six figures. Nice!You’re Essentially Emulating Inflation by Increasing Your Mortgage Payment AnnuallyBy making a payment that is 2% higher each year, you’re basically emulating the rate of inflation.The dollar’s value erodes each year by around this amount, so by paying the extra 2%, you’re essentially adjusting it to keep pace.This should mean it’s not an extra burden, as your wages/income might also be expected to increase by this amount.And everything else you pay might increase by this amount too, whether it’s your grocery bill or homeowners insurance.It’s also quite common for renters to see their monthly rent get increased by their landlord annually.So if they were paying $2,000 per month, the following year they might be told the new rent is $2,100.That’d actually be a 5% increase, and this illustrates why homeownership can be great. It’s an inflation hedge.You aren’t required to pay more each year with a mortgage, but as this strategy shows, you can save a lot if you choose to.And because 2% is such a small number, it’s a gentle approach to paying extra toward the mortgage without overextending yourself.But is it the best strategy out there?You’ll Save Even More by Paying Extra Earlier OnWhile the 2% mortgage hack is a cool way to reduce your interest expense and shorten your loan term, without a big bump in payment, it’s one of many options.First off, it should be noted that some homeowners may not want to pay off the mortgage early at all.This is especially true for those with low mortgage rates, whether it’s a 2% or 3% rate. For these folks, their money might be better off deployed elsewhere.For those who do want to pay off the mortgage early, you save more when you pay more earlier on.What if instead of 2% beginning in year two, you just started paying 5% extra per month immediately?Well, you’d reduce the loan term by about 15 and a half years and save $211,000 in interest.So you could save more if you don’t wait 12 months to begin making larger payments, and even more if you look beyond a 2% bump.The 2% increase is only $48 extra. Chances are homeowners can go a little bigger, granted over time that number does get exponentially bigger.But you could still implement say a 3% or 4% increase right off the bat and turbocharge the savings of this strategy.Read on: Should I prepay the mortgage or invest instead? 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 19 years ago to help prospective (and existing) home buyers better navigate the home loan process. Follow me on X for hot takes.Latest posts by Colin Robertson (see all)

Bing Guan/Bloomberg Wells Fargo took its latest step out of regulatory purgatory on Monday, when the bank said that a 2018 consent order with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been terminated.So far in 2025, the megabank has ironed out six regulatory issues, leaving only three such matters still unresolved. The largest of those remaining speed bumps is Wells Fargo's 2018 asset cap, a Federal Reserve Board restriction that limits the bank to $1.95 trillion of assets.Amid Wells' substantial regulatory progress over the first four months of this year, analysts who cover the $1.9 trillion-asset bank are optimistic that the Fed will remove the asset cap in the coming months."Bottom line: the news will likely reinforce investors' belief that the asset cap could be lifted sooner rather than later," Scott Siefers, an analyst at Piper Sandler, wrote Monday in a research note. The 2018 CFPB consent order stemmed from the bank's alleged violations of consumer-lending rules in connection with a mandatory insurance program for auto loans, as well as in its processes for charging certain borrowers for mortgage interest rate-lock extensions.At the time, Wells agreed to pay a $1 billion penalty, split between the CFPB and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC's related enforcement action was terminated in February 2025.Siefers wrote that both the CFPB and OCC orders dealt with compliance risk management, which is also a consideration for the Fed as it determines when to lift the asset cap."With the OCC and CFPB now apparently comfortable" with the bank's compliance risk management, "we view the forward progress as a good sign," Siefers stated.The latest consent order to be terminated was the company's last remaining public enforcement action with the CFPB, and the 12th compliance matter to be resolved since 2019, when CEO Charlie Scharf joined the bank.In a press release Monday, Scharf expressed confidence that Wells will complete the work necessary to close its other open enforcement actions. "Today's termination, along with the recent closure of other consent orders, demonstrates that we have completed much of our common risk and control infrastructure work, including work that is required by other orders," he said.Gerard Cassidy, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a research note that he believes the asset cap could be lifted in the second quarter of 2025 "and possibly real[ly] soon."He pointed not only to the bank's brisk progress with regulators so far this year, but also to recent comments by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Bessent said on a podcast last month that he wants to loosen what he called the "regulatory corset."Meanwhile, Wells Fargo's critics are urging caution about lifting the asset cap, arguing that the scandal-tarred bank hasn't demonstrated enough progress.Late last year, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote in a letter to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell that the seven-year-old cap should remain in place until the bank "can show that it can properly manage the risks associated with running a large bank."And in a report earlier this month, the Committee for Better Banks, which is working to unionize Wells Fargo employees, argued that the Fed should evaluate the bank's consumer complaint trends before lifting the asset cap.In addition to the asset cap, Wells Fargo is operating under a 2015 agreement with the OCC, which states that the bank violated part of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that deals with the consolidation and management of bank subsidiaries.Also still in place is a 2024 formal agreement with the OCC involving what the regulator called "deficiencies" in the bank's anti-money-laundering controls.

Certain sales practices for distressed single-family properties that had served as collateral for loans the Federal Housing Administration insures will undergo policy reversals, according to a new mortgagee letter.A 30-day, exclusive advanced sale preference for "claims without conveyance of title" properties must end by May 30. Owner-occupants, nonprofits and government entities have had a preference in those sales, in which mortgagees sell homes without conveying title to HUD.Also, real-estate owned properties listed on the Department of Housing and Urban Development's online Homestore must end a similar 30-day sales preference and revert back to a 15-day period by that deadline. "FHA's evaluation of these policies has revealed the efforts were generally not successful in meeting their intended goals," the administration said in an information bulletin announcing the letter. "Instead, they have delayed sales of foreclosure properties, increased the deterioration of these properties, leading to lower sales prices and increased costs."The data behind the decisionThe mortgagee letter cites numbers showing that 3% or 85 of 2,696 CWCOT sales in 2023 with an exclusive listing period went to owner-occupants, government entities or nonprofits. In 2024, the share was similar at 3% of 4,447 sales. "During the new CWCOT exclusive listing period, very few properties have sold to owner-occupant buyers, and even fewer were purchased by HUD-approved nonprofits and government entities," FHA said in its letter.The share of REO properties that went to owner-occupants inched up after the longer exclusive listing period was added, rising from 44% to 52% at one point over a period of 24 months, but then it fell back to 46% a year later. Most of the sales happened in 15 days, with what appeared to be limited migration into the 15-30 day timeframe."For REO, it's unclear whether the longer exclusive listing period resulted in higher overall sales resulted in higher overall REO sales to owner-occupants or shifted sales from the original listing period," the administration said in its letters.The FHA's two moves mirror another one made recently by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and is in line with the Trump administration's efforts to scale back government spending."Removing these requirements aligns with the Trump administration goals of reducing unnecessary burdens and saving taxpayer funds," the FHA said in an information bulletin about its mortgagee letter.The backdrop for the changes taking placeThe FHFA in March reversed Fannie Mae's "repair all" owner-occupant attraction strategy involving REO properties and with a similar comment about misalignment between that program's results and its goals.The stakes are even higher for FHA-insured loans, which historically have had more expansive underwriting criteria than mortgages sold to government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie that the agency oversees.FHA loans tend to attract a relatively high volume of lower-income buyers with less of a financial buffer against hardship. As such, the volumes of distressed properties in the FHA sector tends to be higher.March's serious FHA delinquencies at risk of foreclosure were up 63% compared to a year earlier in ICE Mortgage Technology's latest numbers.

Financial losses related to cybercrimes of all types increased 33% last year, even as the number of complaints fielded by the Internet Crime Complaint Center declined.Losses totaled $16.6 billion in 2024, with the average per-incident jumping to $19,372 from $14,197 in 2023.The No. 1 complaint to IC3, a part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was for phishing/spoofing, at 193,407 reports. Business email compromise, one of the leading causes of losses when it comes to real estate transactions according to CertifID, ranked seventh at 21,442. Real estate cybercrime had 9,359 complaints in 2024.In 2023, 21,489 instances of BEC were reported, while in the year before that 21,832. For real estate, this compared with 9,521 for last year and 11,727 in 2022. But by dollars lost, BEC was second at $2.8 billion; real estate losses were $173.6 million. This is just from the cases which were reported to IC3, CertifID's annual analysis of the data, written by Matt O'Neill, along with the company's Will Looney, noted. O'Neill is the former managing director of the Secret Service's Global Investigative Operations Center.BEC losses were down from $2.9 billion in 2023 but higher than $2.7 billion in 2022. In 2022, real estate losses totaled $397 million, but slipped to $145.2 million the following year.In a separate report released on April 16, after four straight quarters of decline, a higher percentage of mortgage loans had at least one issue which could contribute to wire and/or title fraud in the three months ended March 31, FundingShield found.On average, every problematic loan — whether residential, commercial or business purpose — had 2.5 issues, which is a new record, according to FundingShield. This indicates the lack of appropriate controls by closing agents and lenders to identify and fix issues, according to CEO Ike Suri.In the first quarter, 46.8% of mortgages in an almost $80 billion portfolio FundingShield examined were cited for potential wire or title fraud issues. This was up from 45.5% in the fourth quarter but down from 48% one year ago.During 2024, cyber-enabled fraud added up to $13.7 billion of losses, or 83% of the total, but just 38% of the complaints, IC3 said."While deepfakes, audio spoofing, and other forms of AI-enabled fraud indeed empower fraudsters, the truth is more frustrating," the CertifID report said. "The attacks that are winning aren't new or sophisticated; they're just effective," hitting on a similar theme to the FundingShield report.BEC works because it relies on trust, routine and some distraction, including a spoofed email and a rushed wire transfer. The fraudsters keep using this tactic precisely because it is working. "For the teams that want to combat this threat, that means refocusing on the basics," Looney and O'Neill said.For the sixth consecutive quarter, FundingShield found wire-related errors in more than 8% of transactions during the period, at 8.4%. But more importantly, record levels for closing protection letter validation errors were reached in the first quarter in 10.8% of transactions; this involved data points such as borrower information, vesting/vested parties, non-borrowing parties on title, property addresses, borrower information and more. The government-sponsored enterprises, likely prodded by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, are making an additional focus on closing agent risk management for loan sellers, the commentary to the report from Suri said."FundingShield received requests for data from many of its lender clients that sell to Fannie Mae who recently underwent Mortgage Origination Risk Assessment Audits during Q1 2025," Suri said. "Fannie Mae had reached out to our clients, asking them to confirm the risk framework, measurement, and tracking the lender used to conduct transaction-level risk reviews of the closing agent, the title insurance firm, and transaction-specific details at the time of closing on each loan sold to them."The FHFA was looking at whether the lenders did the check at the time the loan closed and it was transaction-specific, rather than just using a list of approved agents which was updated "'X' days, months or years ago," Suri said.The CertifID report compared fraud prevention to mastering the basics, using a play designed by Vince Lombardi called the Packer Sweep as the example. Much like the Tush Push run by the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles, even though the defense knows it is coming, it is hard to stop.Lombardi would drill the Packer Sweep over and over. "We will run it, and we will run it again and again, until everybody in the stadium knows we're going to run it — and we'll still gain four yards," the CertifID report quoted Lombardi as saying."Business email compromise isn't new or clever," O'Neill and Looney said. "Yet many organizations still haven't mastered their basic plays to get yards on the fraudsters."

Pennymac's CEO David Spector doesn't agree with limiting mortgage broker choice. The company's executive believes brokers should be free to work with any wholesale lender they choose."It's really unfortunate that we're in a situation where brokers are having to choose who they're going to be aligned with at the expense of somebody else," Spector said. "I look at what's going on in the marketplace and I'm just trying to help brokers not become loan officers beholden to one broker or direct lender."Spector argues Pennymac's infrastructure and technology make it a worthy opponent to United Wholesale Mortgage and Rocket Pro, and with time the CEO sees his company taking the number one slot in the wholesale space. In differentiating itself from competitors, Spector claims that unlike UWM and Rocket, Pennymac does not sell the servicing of brokers and instead keeps these loans in-house. "The retention of servicing is vitally important because the broker cares about their customer and the fact that the customer has a loan closed and the servicing immediately transfers, creates a little bit of disruption that brokers will avoid with Pennymac," he said.The CEO said that, going forward, Pennymac will be more vocal in marketing itself to both borrowers and prospective mortgage broker partners. One of the first steps the company has taken to raise its public profile is sponsoring the 2026 and 2028 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams.Read on for more insights from National Mortgage News' interview with Pennymac's executive.