Using satellite images in appraisals and for doing archaeology research
The 21st Century Indiana Jones is a woman crowdsourcing space archeology
My comment: How did we make it without our Google Earth? There are lots of other ways to use satellite images. You can be an amateur archeologist!!
Excerpts:
Sarah Parcak's innovative work in space archaeology has earned her the nickname "the Indiana Jones of the 21st century." When she appeared-wearing Indian Jones' iconic hat-on
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in January, the host referred to her as a "space archaeologist wizard genius." In November 2015, she was awarded the 2016 TED Prize and $1 million.
This week, she has announced her plans for the prize money: She's giving us all a chance to become amateur space archaeologists.
How will this work? First, her team will process and upload satellite imagery to the system. Users who access the system will then be given a deck of images each showing a small plot of land, with clues, keys, and examples to help them analyze the imagery. The users will tag imagery that appears to show new sites or evidence of looting at existing sites; after enough users tag an image, Parcak's team will verify the discovery.
----------------------
MBA Raises Forecast for 2016 Lending as Benchmark Rate Dips
Excerpts:
The Mortgage Bankers Association increased its 2016 industry originations forecast to $1.48 trillion from its January projection of $1.38 trillion to reflect market turmoil that has held interest rates down.
Rates are still expected to rise during the year, but at a pace slower than was thought just a month ago, explained Lynn Fisher, the MBA's vice president of economics and research at the group's National Mortgage Servicing Conference in Orlando, Fla.
The new forecast calls for purchase loan volume of $963 billion and refinance volume of $520 billion. In January, MBA projected volume of $926 billion and $454 billion, respectively.
---------------------------------------
Big banks are fleeing the mortgage market
Excerpts:
Banks originated 74% of all mortgages in 2007, but their share fell to 52% in 2014, the most recent data available from the Mortgage Bankers Association. And it could go even lower.
They now face a regulatory environment so strict that many are afraid to lend, even to customers with the most pristine credit. They're still paying up for misdeeds done during the bubble. There's essentially no private bond market to whom to sell mortgages.
And fighting those battles on behalf of their least-profitable divisions means residential lending just isn't worth it for many banks.
"We can't make money in the business," BankUnited CEO John Kanas said when he announced a mortgage retreat on a January earnings call. "We realized that this was the lowest-margin, most volatile business we had and we decided that we should exit."
They now face a regulatory environment so strict that many are afraid to lend, even to customers with the most pristine credit. They're still paying up for misdeeds done during the bubble. There's essentially no private bond market to whom to sell mortgages.
And fighting those battles on behalf of their least-profitable divisions means residential lending just isn't worth it for many banks.
"We can't make money in the business," BankUnited CEO John Kanas said when he announced a mortgage retreat on a January earnings call. "We realized that this was the lowest-margin, most volatile business we had and we decided that we should exit."
Ellen Seidman, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, sees a future mortgage market that's somewhat bifurcated between small, local institutions like community banks and credit unions, and online lenders, whom borrowers might never meet in person.
If you do lender work, read this article and check out the graphs!!
What does this mean for you? Less work from some AMCs. If you do direct lender work, you may lose a client or two. Check out smaller lenders, including credit unions and local/regional banks who are doing more loans.
