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Volume 98, 
mid-September 2014

      

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Why the Housing Market Hasn't Recovered From the Financial Crisis
excerpted from The Motley Fool 9/8/14
 

This month marks the sixth anniversary of one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the U.S. economy.

 

Over the course of three weeks in Sept. 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were nationalized, Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy, Bank of America agreed to acquire Merrill Lynch, the Federal Reserve bailed out AIG with an $85 billion loan, and the FDIC seized savings-and-loan giant Washington Mutual.

 

Had the financial crisis been a typical recession, it would have been long forgotten by now. But it wasn't. And, as a result, we're still living with the consequences. Nowhere is this more apparent than the housing market. Even though soaring home prices have led some to proclaim a new bubble, the evidence is clear that the markets for both new and existing homes remain a fraction of their former selves.


The natural place to start a discussion about the state of housing is the market for new homes. There are two reasons for this. First, new home construction is intimately intertwined with the demographics of the United States, fueled in large part by population growth and household formation. And second, the homebuilding industry is a critical component of the domestic economy.

 

Since 1950, residential investment as a share of gross domestic product has averaged 4.7%. Last year it was only 3.1%. That equates to an annual shortfall of $288 billion. If you add this back in, it's projected that economic growth would jump to 4%, or nearly double that of the last few years, and that upwards of 1.5 million jobs would be created. (Read complete article.) 

 

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News from PREP Chapters

 

In every edition of the PREP Newsletter, we highlight at least one PREP Chapter and post an abbreviated version of their most recent Chapter Meeting minutes.  You can also see what any of the PREP Chapters are talking about by going to PRIA's PREP Chapters webpage.  


NORTHERN CALIFORNIA PREP:

Co-Chairs:  Government, Frederick Garcia at frederick.garcia@cr.cccounty.us and Business, Chris Stephens, at cstephan@splinc.com  

 

The Northern California PREP Chapter met on August 19, 2014.  The Chapter met via Webinar and primarily discussed the upcoming Bay Area PREP Meeting to be held in Alameda County on October 22, 2014.  At that October meeting, the topics that will be presented include:  the California New Law agenda, the California Recorder Association Conference update, CFPB's eClosing initiative, an eRecording update, Real Estate Fraud, County Indexing, and a PRIA update including an update from the annual conference, current committees and white papers. (See complete minutes for this Chapter on PRIA's PREP Chapters webpage.)

 

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PRIA Posts a White Paper on Redaction for 30-Day Review

PRIA's Records Access and Privacy Policy (RAPP) Committee posted for comment a final draft of a White Paper on Redaction.  This paper is the result of a collaborative effort of PRIA business and government members spanning more than two years.   

 

Comments should be submitted to  Carol Foglesong or Steve McDonald, co-chairs of the RAPP Committee, no later than Thursday, October 9, 5 p.m., ET. To access the paper, click here
 
       

 

Here Come the Redlining Investigations
excerpted from National Mortgage News 9/9/14

Following the City of Providence, the State of New York has filed the first of many promised lawsuits against lenders, accusing mortgage companies of redlining.

 

Specifically, lenders are facing charges that they failed to lend in certain geographic areas that are racially or ethnically diverse. A current investigation the State of New York is now conducting targets lenders who were aggressively lending in these areas prior to 2008 with higher priced loans, and now tend to make very few loans in these same areas.

 

Of course, it should be noted that lenders who made riskier loans prior to 2008 would probably have suffered greater losses and thus become much more conservative in terms of lending criteria. Such across-the-board changes would not necessarily be illegal but would nonetheless result in a dramatic shift in lending patterns. In the Evans Bank case, however, the state has pointed to the location of branches, distribution of marketing materials, and comparative application data of competitors as evidence of a conscious decision to avoid lending in certain areas. (Read complete article.

 

          
Understanding the Technical Implications of the New Disclosure Rule: Part 1
excerpted from National Mortgage News 9/9/14 

In less than one year, the new RESPA/TILA integrated disclosure final rule will take effect, impacting all aspects of lenders' origination processes and technology. Most lenders are generally aware of the new rule. But it is important to realize that this rule is not merely a consolidation of the good-faith estimate, truth-in-lending disclosure and the settlement statement (HUD-1) into two new material disclosures, the loan estimate and closing disclosure.

 

A major concern is the risk associated with communication between ancillary third-party service providers (and their disparate technologies) and lenders' software systems of record.

 

Lenders must control the fee-naming conventions and fee applications in order to create a standard proprietary dataset within their origination practice and to reduce operational and loan level risk. While MISMO and the Uniform Closing Dataset provide some standardization, there will be additional fields and metadata concerns that lenders will need to address. (Read complete article.) 

 

PRIA Officers and Directors Elected

During its August 25-28 Annual Conference in Long Beach, Calif., the Property Records Industry Association (PRIA) elected six directors in three categories for two-year terms on the Board of Directors.

 

Kim LeGate, chief deputy of operations, Davidson County, Tenn., and Diane Swoboda Peterson, deputy recorder, Woodbury County, Iowa, were elected directors in the recorder category.  LeGate starts her second two-year term as a member of the board.  Ann Richards, business development, Pioneer Technology Group, and Kelly Romeo, vice president, American Land Title Association, were elected in the business category.  Romeo begins her fifth two-year term as a board member.

 

Nancy Sotomayor, recording manager, Douglas County, Colo., and Jerry Lewallen, president, eRecording Partners Network, were elected to at-large positions.  Both are new to the PRIA board for 2014-15. Directors continuing for the second year of a two-year term include, Larry Burtness, recorder, Washoe County, Nev.; Kathi Guay, register of deeds, Merrimack County, N.H.; and Val Wood, chief deputy recorder/clerk, San Diego County, Calif., all representing government members. 


Charlie Epperson, chief technology officer, SigniaDocs; Karl Klessig, president, CSC eRecording Solutions; and Zachary Zaharek, vice president and senior corporate counsel, First American Corp., represent the business members.  Mark Ladd, director of channel sales, Simplifile, continues as an at-large member of the board. 


The 2014-15 board convened on Thursday, August 28, Vice President Burtness swore in the newly elected board members.  The new board proceeded to elect officers for one-year terms.  Ladd will serve as president, Burtness will continue as vice president, Swoboda Peterson will serve as secretary and Romeo as treasurer. 


According to President Ladd, "It is an honor to have been elected president of this great organization.  Having participated in PRIA in several capacities during the past 14 years, I know the size of the shoes I'll need to fill.  There are great opportunities ahead of us and I consider it a privilege to be entrusted by my peers to lead PRIA at this exciting time."

 

Johnson County Nebraska Launches eRecording

The Johnson County clerk's office in Nebraska has launched electronic recording (eRecording) of documents such as deeds and mortgages through Simplifile.

 

Johnson County joins 63 other Nebraska eRecording counties that have also implemented Simplifile's eRecording service in more than 1,125 eRecording counties across the nation. (Read complete press release on PRIA's webpage.) 

 

ALTA NEWS:  Michelle Korsmo, ALTA CEO, Speaks About ALTA's Best Practices at the Mortgage Bankers Association's Risk Management & Quality Assurance Forum 

excerpted from the September 8, 2014 ALTA Advocacy Update

 

"I am in Miami to speak on the role of ALTA's Best Practices in a lenders vendor management program as part of a panel at the Mortgage Bankers Association's Risk Management & Quality Assurance Forum. The conference brings together an interesting group of lending staff with whom few title professionals ever interact-namely, risk management professionals, loan underwriters and fraud investigators. While a lot of the conversation here is focused on the new Dodd-Frank rules, interestingly, most of the conversation is not focused on compliance but rather on risk mitigation.

 

In the risk management world there are three potential objectives: (1) risk avoidance, (2) risk acceptance, or (3) risk mitigation. In our industry we are most familiar with risk avoidance and acceptance. The search and examination process is meant to uncover discoverable risks to title and either avoid them through curative action, except them on schedule B, or accept them by providing coverage. In the lending world, since so much of the risk can't be eliminated, the focus is on minimizing it.

 

This is where ALTA's Best Practices really come into play. No vendor management program can ensure that non-public personal information (NPI) is never compromised or that an unusual delay won't cause a recording to happen late, but the Best Practices are designed to help our industry showcase to our lender partners the processes we have in place to minimize the risk.

 

Throughout this summer ALTA has been releasing Assessment Readiness Guides on each Best Practice. This week, we will release the guide for Best Practice Pillar #2 on escrow account security. We know that going out and hiring a firm to conduct an assessment of your company can be expensive. These guides are designed to help you determine whether you are ready for an assessment and also help you prepare your own Compliance Management Program. These guides are meant to help you talk with your lenders about your practices and how you work to minimize risk. The eventual goal is to prevent the need for expensive audits.

 

If you have been sitting on the sidelines with Best Practices, I urge you to use the tools from ALTA and start now. If you wait until next year, it's likely that an improving housing market and implementation of the new Integrated Mortgage Disclosures will leave you even further behind. While no one is requiring you to be Best Practices-certified by a certain date (yet), the best risk management and marketing strategy is to get ahead of the curve." 

 

Links to National News

   

Are Subprime Mortgages Coming Back?
The New York Times | September 9, 2014
Six years after the housing bust, the return of riskier mortgage lending may be inevitable - and welcome.

Judicial Foreclosure States Seeing Faster Gains in Home Asking Prices
DSNews| September 9, 2014
The latest Trulia report found that home asking prices are increasing faster in hard-hit metros in judicial states such as Florida, Illinois and New York, where the foreclosure process takes longer because it has to go through the courts, than it is in non-judicial states such as California, Michigan and Texas.

Police have arrested a Costa Mesa man after he allegedly posed as a real estate agent and tried to sell a residential property to which he had no connection.

 

Land Prices On the Rise This Year
RealtorMag | September 5, 2014
Land prices rose a median of 4 percent across the country for the 12 months ending in June, according to the 2014 Land Markets Survey of more than 600 members of the Realtors Land Institute.    

     

 
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CONTENT DISCLAIMER
  
The views and opinions expressed in the media, articles, comments, or links in this publication are those of the speakers or authors and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions held by the Property Records Industry Association (PRIA) or its members.  PRIA does not warrant the accuracy, timeliness or completeness of the information contained in this publication. If you have a complaint about something you have found in this publication, please contact PRIA by email at info@pria.us.
FAIR USE NOTICE
 
This publication may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. PRIA believes this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this publication is distributed without profit, to those who have expressed a prior interest in such information, for comment and nonprofit educational purposes.
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If you'd like to advertise in this newsletter please contact: stevie@pria.us
In This Issue
Why the Housing Market Hasn't Recovered from the Financial Crisis
News from PREP Chapters - Northern California
PRIA Posts a White Paper on Redaction for Review
Here Come the Redlining Investigations
Understanding the Technical Implications of the New Disclosure Rule
PRIA Officers and Directors Elected
Johnson County NE Launches eRecording
ALTA News
Links to National News
Advertise in PRIA's Newsletters
PREP Blog and PREP LinkedIn
Examples of PRIA's Products 
  
 
  
                    
PREP Chapter Meetings
          
 September - December 2014  
  

      Central Florida 

      Metro Minnesota 

      North Central Texas

      Pennsylvania  

      SE Minnesota

      Central Texas

      Central Lakes MN

      Colorado

      Washington

      Upstate South Carolina            

          


Contact Information

Do you have questions or suggestions for this newsletter or any updated information on co-chairs, emails, phone numbers, etc. please contact us:
Carolyn Ableman
PREP Coordinator

Mark Monacelli
PREP Committee Government Co-Chair, Recorder
St Louis County, Minnesota

Madeleine Nagy

PREP Committee Business

Co-Chair, ALTA

State Government Affairs

 

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