Mortgage demand fell for the first time since November as mortgage rates reached their lowest level since June 2023.
Total home loan applications decreased by 1.5% for the week ending Dec. 15 compared to the previous week, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).
Mortgage rates for the 30-year fixed loan averaged 6.83%, according to Freddie Mac‘s Primary Mortgage Market Survey.
“At least as of last week, borrowers’ response to this rate move was rather tepid,” Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s senior vice president and chief economist said in a statement. “VA refinance applications jumped 18% for the week, but otherwise, both refinance and purchase applications showed small declines.”
Purchase applications decreased by 1% week over week on an adjusted basis. Meanwhile, refinance applications decreased by 2% on a weekly basis.
The share of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan activity decreased to 15.5%, down from 16.1% the week prior. The share of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) loan activity was 15.6%, up from 14.2% over the previous week, while the share of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) loan activity remained unchanged at 0.4%.
Looking to find the best places to sell video games? Whether you have a brand new video game or a used video game, you can probably sell it online or at a place near you. In fact, I have bought many used video games from sellers over the years, so I know firsthand that people…
Looking to find the best places to sell video games?
Whether you have a brand new video game or a used video game, you can probably sell it online or at a place near you.
In fact, I have bought many used video games from sellers over the years, so I know firsthand that people do buy games – both new and old! And, I have done this both online and at places I shopped at in person.
It’s normal for gamers to have lots of video games. When new game systems come out and our interests change, selling the games we don’t play anymore can be a great way to make some extra money, after all.
Key Takeaways
Selling video games can make you extra money and lets other people enjoy the games you don’t play anymore.
How much a game is worth depends a lot on its market value, condition, and how much people want it.
You can sell video games online at places like Decluttr and eBay.
You can sell video games in person at places like GameStop and Craigslist.
Best Places To Sell Video Games Online
Below are the best places to sell video games online.
1. Decluttr
Decluttr is a popular site for selling used items, including video games on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo.
To sell a game, you will enter or scan the barcode using Decluttr’s site, which will give you an instant quote if your item is accepted. With a free shipping label through UPS, Decluttr makes it easy to sell games for cash, and you get paid by direct deposit or PayPal.
Whether you are looking to sell just one used video game or if you have a bulk amount, this is an easy site to sell on, especially with their free prepaid shipping label.
If you have other items to sell too (such as DVDs, game consoles, CDs, etc.), this is one of the best websites if you want to sell your stuff.
2. eBay
eBay is a popular online marketplace where you can sell new or used video games. You can either auction your games or set a fixed price. You will have to do all the work, such as taking pictures of what you are selling, writing a description, and mailing it off.
Keep in mind that eBay charges fees and there are shipping costs too.
I have sold on eBay many times in the past, and it is great if you want to make the most money. This is because you are cutting out any middle person and doing all the work yourself.
I have also bought several used retro video games and gaming consoles on eBay. The platform makes it extremely easy to find anything and everything from around the world. Whether you are looking at popular games like Super Mario Bros or retro games on Atari or Sega – there is probably a fit for you to list your video games on eBay.
3. Amazon Trade-In
Amazon Trade-In is a convenient place for trading in your video games for Amazon gift cards with their instant trade-ins.
Plus, everyone has heard of Amazon so you know it is a real site.
Simply search for the title, select the correct game, and give an honest review of the game’s condition. Shipping is free with a printable label from Amazon, which makes it easy to trade in multiple games at once if you have a bulk amount that you want to sell.
4. OfferUp
OfferUp is a site where you can sell video games to people nearby. It’s easy to use, and you can list your games to reach more people in your area.
I did a quick search and found hundreds of used video games for sale in my town, so there is definitely a wide selection. OfferUp does charge a fee of around 10% to 15% for an item once it sells. This is something that you will want to think about when selling your video games as this seller fee can add up quickly.
5. Swappa
Swappa is a safe and easy website for selling used items like video games. You simply create a free listing on Swappa and pay a fee of 3% after it sells.
Payment is done through PayPal and shipping costs are paid by the seller.
On Swappa, you can sell Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox, 3DS, Wii, Nintendo NES, Nintendo SNES, and more – from gaming consoles to video games and even controllers.
6. Gameflip
Gameflip is a marketplace for selling gaming items, including video games and even in-game items (this is what sets it apart from the other sites on this list).
The in-game items feature is something that I find really interesting. Yes, these are digital items that you don’t even have physically. Instead, these would be items that you have in the actual video game.
For example, you can sell a sword or outfit that you have in a game to another player. These are items that you may win or find while you are playing a video game – and you can actually sell these digital items to other people and make money!
You can also sell both physical and digital games, set your own prices, and talk with possible buyers on Gameflip – making it easy to sell your video games and other items.
Best Places To Sell Video Games Near You
Below are the best places to sell video games near you.
7. GameStop
If you’re a video gamer, then you’ve definitely heard of GameStop.
At GameStop, you can trade in or sell your games, gaming consoles, and accessories. Their website and app give you up-to-date values for your items so you know what to expect, which I think is very nice.
For example, I went to the GameStop trade-in site and stated that I wanted to sell my Pokemon Silver Version for the Game Boy. This is an old game that is pretty much a classic. And GameStop says that I can get up to $15.40 for it in store credit or up to $10.78 in cash for it. With less than 10 clicks I was able to see how much I can get for each video game, which is so easy!
You can simply go to your local GameStop store and make the sale in person. This option is great for those who prefer dealing with a well-established retailer and want to sell video games for cash.
8. Best Buy
Best Buy is a store where you can trade in your games in-store for a Best Buy gift card.
This might be perfect if you plan on purchasing other electronics from them.
To get a trade-in estimate, you just go to their website and input your game’s details. They will handle the rest, which makes the whole trade-in process really quick and easy.
9. Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace is great for those who want to sell their games within their local area without fees.
It does mean direct interaction with potential buyers, but you can negotiate the price as you need to. You just post your game with a brief description and wait for interested buyers to message you on Facebook.
10. Craigslist
Similar to Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist is a popular option for selling items locally. There are no listing fees for using Craigslist.
You just create a listing and include pictures and a price. This option is great for people who don’t mind handling the transaction themselves and want to make extra cash.
I have sold many things on Craigslist over the years, and it is a very easy site to use. There are not very many used video games sold on this site, but I do love how they don’t charge any fees, so you get to keep more of your money. However, you usually are not able to make as much because your pool of buyers is smaller.
11. Game X Change
Game X Change focuses on trading and selling games, consoles, board games, figurines, and so much more. Pretty much anything related to games can be sold through this site.
On their website, it’s easy to check how much your game is worth and what you can get in return.
Plus, they pay in cash or credit.
12. Pawn shops
Pawn shops can be an option for selling your used games, especially if they’re in good condition.
Pawn stores might not give you the most amount of money compared to other places (this is because they don’t specialize in games), but it’s an alternative if you need quick cash and don’t want any hassle as you won’t need to make a listing, process payments, deduct seller fees, prepare a shipment, or anything like that.
How Much Used Video Games Are Worth
When figuring out how much your used video games are worth, think about a few things that can affect their value.
Popular game titles
How popular a game is can really impact how much you can sell it for. If a game is a classic or really popular, it’s usually worth more than games that aren’t well-known.
Condition and rarity
The condition of the game is important in deciding how much it’s worth. Games with their original cases and manuals usually sell for more money. Also, if a game is rare or a limited edition, it might be worth more.
Time of year
The time of year can also change how much used video games are worth. When new games in a series come out, older ones might be more wanted. Also, during the holiday season, more people want video games to give as gifts, so their prices might go up.
Preparing your video games for sale
Before selling your video games, here are a few things you can do to make them worth more money:
Clean and inspect – Gently clean the game and inspect it for any visible damage.
Test – Play the game to make sure it works (no one wants to buy a broken game).
Gather everything – Find case inserts, manuals, or other materials that came with the game.
Frequently Asked Questions About How To Sell Video Games
Below are answers to common questions about how to sell video games.
Where can I sell retro video games?
You can sell retro video games on specialized platforms like eBay, Decluttr, and The Old School Game Vault as these websites cater to collectors and enthusiasts.
What is the best platform to sell PC games online?
Many of the sites above can be used to sell PC games online as well. Some good ones to start with include eBay and Decluttr.
Can I trade in games for cash at GameStop? Can I sell a video game at GameStop?
Yes, you can trade in games, consoles, and accessories at GameStop for cash or in-store credit.
How does Amazon’s Trade-In program work for video games?
Amazon’s Trade-In program lets you trade in your used video games for Amazon gift cards. To trade in your old video games, you just need to find your game on Amazon, click on the Trade-In button, and describe the condition of your item. Then, print a prepaid shipping label, pack your game, and send it to Amazon. Once your game is accepted, you’ll receive an Amazon gift card equal to the trade-in value. Note that the trade-in values on Amazon are often comparable to GameStop.
How To Sell Video Games – Summary
I hope you enjoyed this article on how to sell video games online and near you.
In conclusion, the best place to sell your video games depends on what you like and where you are. It’s a good idea to check different options to make sure you get the most value for your gaming stuff.
Selling video games gives us extra money for new gaming stuff, and it lets others have fun with the games we enjoyed.
I have bought and sold many different video games over the years, so I know that it is a real way to make extra money!
When selling old video games, think about things like how much people are willing to pay, the game’s condition, and how much others want that game or console. Doing some research can help you make more money while getting rid of your used games easily. There are many online places and local stores where you can sell your video games, so I’m sure you can find the best one for you.
What do you think is the best place to sell video games?
High-profile government actions against some of the nation’s largest financial firms for alleged violations of fair lending laws and loan servicing principles have sent a sobering message to industry CEOs and their boards: the buck stops at the top.
We have entered a new regulatory era, one filled with expectations that a firm’s compliance with the letter and spirit of the law has the full attention of the C-suite and boardroom — not relegated to back-office compliance department functions.
We’d be mistaken to think this new environment is transitory, tied to one presidential administration or another. While the current leadership is vocal relative to consumer protection and racial equity issues, there are permanent, institutional commitments to fairness in housing and housing finance that have been enshrined in law for decades and that transcend politics.
A number of economic, legal, policy and public pressures will continue to keep fairness issues front-and-center for the foreseeable future — particularly around lending and loan default servicing. The compliance landscape for lenders and servicers will be increasingly complex as some oversight agencies and advocates evaluate and re-evaluate what constitutes unlawful or unfair conduct.
Indeed, multiple agencies pursuing the same general goals sometimes creates inconsistencies or conflicting interpretations of policy, making it difficult for financial institutions to navigate uncharted waters, even with the best of intentions. Recent regulatory actions have targeted marketing practices, credit allocation and product offerings.
Regulators will look to ensure that a financial firm’s leadership is accountable and actively managing their fair lending and servicing efforts. Companies will be judged on whether they are maintaining appropriate compliance management systems, including monitoring, written policies, risk management, change management, testing and company culture — and whether their boards are equally focused on their oversight function.
In this swirl of challenges, financial executives who fail to pay attention can face legal costs, fines, penalties, consent orders and contested litigation — or worse. Just ask the ones who in the recent past have lost their jobs or faced reputational damage.
CEOs need to understand their firm’s capacities and get ahead of problems before they become crises. Specifically, they need to work closely with the team members who are responsible for legal and compliance monitoring to reduce legal risks, comprehend data that might indicate disparate treatment or impact, identify gaps that may exist in their knowledge and experience and structure management teams accordingly so that they reflect a comprehensive approach to compliance. And they need to engage all board members, keep them informed, seek their guidance and make them aware of their own potential legal peril.
Most importantly, financial firms should work to understand the intent, not just the letter, of multiple rules and laws, as well as the mindset of varied enforcement bodies. Strong compliance programs are prudent, meaning they are focused on avoiding regulatory challenges, even if some practices might be defensible.
If financial executives do business anywhere along the housing supply chain, they are willingly part of our nation’s effort to live up to its highest ideals of helping to create homeownership opportunities and fairness for everyone.
As part of that obligation, private sector players are endowed with a complex, at times conflicting, set of actions under often-difficult-to-construe fair lending laws. They become vehicles for delivering public policies and bear risk while trying to implement them. However, as a result, company leaders are often required to think more like partners with regulators and agencies rather than their adversaries. It warrants mention that government agencies should recognize this relationship can work both ways — they too have obligations to their private sector partners, chief among them transparency, open dialogue and technology improvements.
As an industry, we must continue to act responsibly on the issues of compliance and discrimination. The struggle for equality and fairness will forever be a continuing part of the American experiment. All of us can be part of the solution. And it starts at the top.
Brian Montgomery is a founding partner of Washington, D.C.-based Gate House Strategies.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners. To contact the author of this story: Brian Montgomery at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sarah Wheeler at [email protected]
A coalition of bipartisan lawmakers in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday introduced legislation targeting the practice of mortgage trigger leads.
The bill, designated “S.3502,” is designed to “amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to prevent consumer reporting agencies from furnishing consumer reports under certain circumstances,” according to the bill’s language. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) is the bill’s sponsor, with Sen. Bill Haggerty (R-Tenn.) serving as co-sponsor.
A trigger lead is where consumer credit reporting agencies share with other lenders that a “hard credit report” was pulled for a mortgage application. This can lead to an onslaught of calls to that consumer vying for their lending business.
The senators introduced the bill into the Senate on Wednesday, which then referred it to its Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. That committee will need to approve the measure before it can come to the Senate floor.
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) chimed in on the renewed effort, saying it is in support of the newly introduced bill.
“MBA and its members have led the industry in advocating for legislative reforms to stop the unwanted harassment of consumers resulting from trigger lead abuses,” said Bob Broeksmit, president and CEO of MBA. “We commend Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) for introducing the Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act to protect consumers while preserving the legitimate use of trigger leads in appropriately narrow circumstances during a real estate transaction.”
MBA also committed to supporting a similar piece of legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year, which also targets the trigger lead practice.
“We will advocate for this important bipartisan Senate bill, along with the Protecting Consumers from Abusive Mortgage Leads Act (H.R. 4198) introduced earlier this year and led in the House by Reps. John Rose (R-Tenn.) and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), to be passed into law as soon as possible.”
Late in the day on Thursday, both the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) and the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) released their own public statements of support for the bill, with NAMB saying it has advocated for action on this issue for “the past three Congresses.”
ICBA added that the privacy concerns of customers need to be prioritized.
“ICBA and the nation’s community banks thank Sens. Reed and Hagerty for introducing the Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act to restrict the sale of trigger leads and give consumers more control over their private financial information and shield them from unwanted solicitations,” said Rebeca Romero Rainey, president and CEO of ICBA.
Sen. Reed spearheaded a different effort to crack down on the mortgage trigger lead practice in April but it didn’t get much traction. That bill had one other Democratic co-sponsor, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), whereas this new effort has bipartisan support.
In a Senate hearing earlier this month featuring Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra, Reed took the opportunity to ask about the practice of mortgage trigger leads. Chopra agreed with Reed’s characterizations of the practice as confusing for consumers, but described the Bureau’s authority to act on the matter as “limited.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with comments from ICBA and NAMB.
L. Scott Bruggemann, senior vice president and general counsel at Summit, wrote in an emailed response to HousingWire that, at this time, the company “does not have anything to add to its prior comments.”
In response to the first lawsuit filed by Movement in November, Bruggemann wrote that the company continues to compete for talented individuals “fairly” and according to “legal and regulatory requirements.”
Scrima did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Movement’s attorney Ari Karen, partner at Mitchell Sandler, said in a call with HousingWire that the lawsuit was filed separately from the first in North Carolina in November due to Scrima’s location in California. Scrima, according to him, orchestrated a “premeditated theft of information” scheme.
“Things do happen in the recruiting process. There are a lot of balls in the air; people can make mistakes, and some are innocent, some are not. But I think what distinguishes this case is the outright orchestration, the level of intent,” Karen said. “They literally went out and said: ‘We’re going to go steal Movement’s staff and their secrets. I rarely see that level of premeditation.”
According to Karen, about 50 employees left Movement to join Summit – and it’s unclear at this point whether Summit is still using the information it allegedly stole, he said.
Founded in 2008, Movement says it has over 4,500 employees across 775 locations in all 50 states. The company claims Summit, founded in 1995 by Scrima, “had fewer than 200 loan officers until Scrima engaged in a desperate and unlawful scheme to copy Movement’s successful business model.”
Specifically, Movement accuses Scrima of initiating a corporate raid of Movement’s employees using the company’s former high-level managers. It included stealing trade secrets and computer systems.
The lawsuit names nine of Movement’s former employees who allegedly transitioned to Summit as part of the scheme and had confidentiality and non-solicitation agreements. Scrima, according to the lawsuit, knew about these agreements.
The document brings an alleged text message sent on May 24 at 1:08 p.m. by Scrima to a group of executives at Summit saying he had a “great call” with Deran “working on the first 90-day plan” and providing a contact of a Movement employee.
After that, the lawsuit states the Movement employee mentioned by Scrima began accessing the company’s database, which contains “highly proprietary information regarding its financials, employees, compensation, borrowers and loan products.”
The company claims the data was later shared with Summit executives, and the employee transitioned from Movement to Summit.
On another occasion, the lawsuit states that Scrima texted Summit’s chief growth officer, Brian Mitchell, asking for Movement’s profit and loss information (P&L). In response, Mitchell asked if Scrima was sure he wanted Movement’s “proprietary/confidential information on Summit servers.”
Scrima replied, “Not on our servers. Can you maybe set up misc WhatsApp account and have them texted there?” According to the lawsuit, Scrima got the information and told executives to “dissect” them.
Per the lawsuit, Mitchell was fired from Summit in November after bringing his complaints about these actions to the company’s legal counsel. In a call with Movement representatives that he agreed to record, Mitchell said Summit had data on Movement’s employees and their wages and some 9,000 borrowers’ information. A transcript of the call is attached to the lawsuit.
“At all times, Scrima knew that his conduct was wrongful. Indeed, the mere fact that he instructed staff to hide Movement files through a WhatsApp account rather than maintain them on Summit’s servers speaks to the conscious nature of his activities,” the lawsuit states.
Movement also accuses Scrima of creating a scheme to divert its customers to Summit through its “resigning loan officers.”
The lawsuit cites an email from an LO sent in October to a borrower asking to hold off on locking and wait to close the loan with a “sister company” when rates drop. He indicated the name of a Summit employee for the new loan application. The LO who sent the email later resigned to join Summit, the lawsuit states.
“Scrima established a supposed Portfolio Retention Department at his company to facilitate this transfer of information” of potential borrowers from one company to another, according to the lawsuit.
Movement requests the court $5 million in actual damages and not less than $25 million in punitive damages, among other things. It demands a jury trial.
Mr. Cooper Group’s examination of the cyberattack it suffered in late October concluded that the personal information of current and former customers was compromised. The data breach led the company to estimate an additional vendor cost related to the incident in the fourth quarter to include offering identity protection services for two years.
On Oct. 31, the Dallas-based servicer and lender said it had experienced a cybersecurity incident with an unauthorized third party accessing certain portions of its technology systems and customer data. Mr. Cooper restarted servicing operations on Nov. 4 by taking customer calls and payments, remitting to investors and onboarding new loans.
On Friday morning, the company announced in a new 8k filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that its “forensic review has determined that personal information relating to substantially all of our current and former customers was obtained from our systems during this incident.”
Mr. Cooper had 4.3 million customers by the end of Sept. 30.
“To assist our customers, we will offer complimentary identity protection services, including credit monitoring, to all of our current and former customers for two years,” Mr. Cooper added in the document. “We are in the process of reaching out to customers with instructions on how to sign up for these complimentary services and how to contact us with questions.”
The initiative will add to Mr. Cooper’s costs. The company’s guidance for the fourth quarter will now include vendor expenses related to that incident of $25 million, compared to their previous estimate between $5 million and $10 million. The company included an accrual for the cost of providing identity protection services for two years.
Meanwhile, the company maintained its forecast for Q4 originations segment pretax operating earnings between $0 and a $10 million loss. The pretax operating earnings for the servicing segment is expected to be from $200 million to $210 million (excluding mortgage servicing rights mark-to-market net of hedges.)
Mr. Cooper delivered $275 million in net income in the third quarter, compared to $142 million in the second quarter. The company’s funded volume reached $3.3 billion from July to September. Its servicing portfolio was at $937 billion in UPB at the end of September.
Forensic review of the cyberattack, engagement with law enforcement and regulators, and litigation defense are ongoing. Due to the incident, several customers filed class-action lawsuits against the company, claiming Mr. Cooper failed to comply with industry standards to protect their information.
What a crazy week! Not too long ago, on jobs Friday, I was on the HousingWire Daily podcast saying it’s time to declare war on the Federal Reserve for being too restrictive; you can listen to the podcast here. A few days later, the Fed corrected its mistake — they didn’t go hawkish but instead made doves cry and bond yields acted correctly, sending the 10-year yield below 4% and mortgage rates under 7%.
Right after the Fed presser I did another podcast where I outlined why this was so positive for the U.S. economy. You can see it in the stats from last week, where the 10-year yield fell from 4.25% to end the week at 3.91%. Mortgage rates went from 7.10% to 6.62% and ended the week at 6.64%.
As I have said before, given the history of economic cycles, when the market believes the Fed rate-hike cycle is over, bond yields will rally and mortgage rates will fall. We have had an almost 1.5% move lower in mortgage rates without one rate cut happening, and that looks normal to me. We shall see if we can hold those gains next week.
Purchase application data
Even before mortgage rates dropped below 7.25%, we saw a positive move in purchase application data, which continued last week with another week of gains. That means we’ve had a positive trend for the last five weeks. Purchase apps were up 4% week to week, and as crazy as it might sound, we could end the year with more positive weekly prints than negative as the year-to-date count is 23 positive and 23 negative, with two flat prints.
During the last two weeks of the year, nothing much usually happens with purchase apps as we prepare for Christmas and the New Year, but I will always track the data! But the fact that we can even talk about a positive year when mortgage rates got to 8% demonstrates something that I have been talking about since Nov. 9, 2022, and for many years: It’s rare the U.S. to have existing home sales trends below 4 million with any duration post-1996. We have a core set of 4 million homebuyers every year for more than 25 years, and that hasn’t broken yet.
Weekly housing inventory data
Weekly active listing data is declining now like it always does every year at this time due to seasonality. Higher mortgage rates resulted in higher inventory during part of the fall and forced the seasonal decline in inventory to start later this year. However, the laws of seasonality always win in the end, and we are well on the road to a seasonal decline in inventory.
Last year, according to Altos Research, the seasonal peak for housing inventory was Oct. 28. The seasonal peak this year was on Nov. 17.
Weekly inventory change: (Dec. 8-15): Inventory fell from 546,424 to 538,767
Same week last year (Dec. 9-16): Inventory fell from 536,409 to 522,869
The inventory bottom for 2022 was 240,194
The inventory peak for 2023 so far is 569,898
For context, active listings for this week in 2015 were 1,037,129
New listing data in 2023 has been a positive story; even with higher mortgage rates, we didn’t see more sellers pull back as they did in 2022 after rates surpassed 6%. Because we saw stability in 2023, I was looking for some flat to positive year-over-year growth in the data during the second half of the year. This is what we see, and it’s much needed; we need more new listings and not fewer. Even though this data line has been trending at the lowest levels ever in history for 17 months, it’s positive that we are seeing growth on a year-over-year basis now. This was something I talked about on CNBC months ago.
New listings data for last week in the last several years:
2023: 39,613
2022: 34,973
2021: 39,936
Traditionally, one-third of all homes will have price cuts before they sell. When mortgage rates rise and demand decreases, more homes see price cuts. However, even with mortgage rates reaching 8% this year, we trended below 2022 levels the entire time. Now that mortgage rates have fallen almost 1.5%, it will be interesting to see what the spring season in 2024 will look like. If demand does pick up as we are seeing now, the percentage of houses taking price cuts will likely fall further.
Price cut percentages this week over the last few years:
2023: 38%
2022: 41%
2021: 26%
The week ahead: Housing and Inflation
Housing week is here so we have four reports: the builders confidence Index, housing starts, existing home sales and new home sales. Also, we have the Fed’s critical inflation data report in the PCE, and it will be interesting to see how the bond market reacts to this report now that the Fed is discussing rate cuts. We also have the leading economic index to report on.
So, tons of data coming out this week. One thing about existing home sales: purchase application data started to improve five weeks ago. This data line looks out 30-90 days, so this existing home sales report might be too early to take into account the entire positive move in the forward-looking data.
Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler sat down with Kirill Klokov, CEO at Truv, to talk about the advantages of consumer-permissioned data for data quality and security. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Sarah Wheeler:How did you get into the verification space?
Kirill Klokov: It was through experiencing how verifications can be broken myself. I’m an immigrant, so when I came here to study and graduated from business school, I got a good job. But I didn’t have much of a credit score, so right after graduation, I applied for a loan to get a car and build my credit. And I got rejected by every single bank I applied with, including the credit union I bank with. They actually didn’t know what to do with me, because I didn’t fit into any of the credit boxes. So, I thought: this is a real opportunity.
Now, almost 10 years later, there’s plenty of fintech, but we’re still just scratching the surface: there are 60 million people who cannot actually get anything other than a payday loan. That’s ridiculous. When you need to verify income for people who don’t have a credit score or they have a thin file — that’s when you need to understand the customers’ ability to pay. And you need to do the same thing in huge transactions like mortgage.
SW: The mortgage space has its own very particular kinds of challenges, especially from a regulatory standpoint. What did you find?
KK: What I learned is: you’ve got to respect the complexity and understand that this is an ecosystem of its own. And mortgage lenders like talking to mortgage lenders, and it’s a whole community of people that once you embed yourself and you’re willing to learn, it’s pretty amazing.
SW: Freddie Mac just approved Truv for payroll verifications and consumer-permissioned income verification. What does that mean for your business?
KK: It’s just the beginning of us being able to tackle some of the pain points that the mortgage lenders are having in this country. If you look at just the last 12 months, you got a 400% increase from FICO, you got an increase from Equifax and the credit bureaus and then you got hit by The Work Number increase again.
Lenders are going through a tough time and some companies are taking advantage of whatever they have left in this market. I think this is a great opportunity for us and for the GSEs to level the playing field and allow new vendors to join so that we can give discounts. And if you’re writing the ROI analysis on us versus say The Work Number, you can save up to 70% of the total cost of The Work Number expenses.
SW: One of your differentiators is consumer-permissioned data and making it easier on the consumer. What does that look like?
KK: Imagine you use nCino or SimpleNexus as a POS, you will open the app and there will be a pop-up which would ask who your employer is. Then we know from our historical data which payroll provider that employer uses, say it’s ADP. The consumer logs in with their ADP credentials and then we’ll authenticate, extract the data and return back to the mortgage lender. It’s a fairly straightforward process.
In comparison, the instant databases like The Work Number go provider by provider and sign exclusive agreements. So, if you wanted to build the next The Work Number, you just can’t because it’s very expensive. And if anybody thinks that there will be another provider who will come around and sell Work Number data for $5, or whatever their prices were before the 2020 spikes, it’s not happening because they completely locked up the market. So the alternative is to access the data in partnership with the borrower. And that’s a more innovative way to access the data — without the middleman.
SW: How does this affect the borrower directly?
KK: When somebody increases prices, they will try to pass along that cost. When I bought a home last time, I got a $350 charge from The Work Number for my loan. And the more prices are increased for credit pulls and for income verification, the more those costs will end up on the closing statement. As a borrower myself, I find it find kind of funny that somebody took my data, put that in their own database without my permission, then charged the lender for my data, and then the lender passed along those costs to me. So I effectively pay for my own employment verification. Same with credit and with any third-party database. For me it’s just mind-boggling.
SW: How do you think about security?
KK: Let’s look at what can go wrong step by step. If I ask you to send me pay stubs, what happens if my email gets hacked or you send it to the wrong email? On your pay stub you have your social security number, which is like your whole life. And who knows how that email is getting shared around within a big bank or a big IMB? Because email is not that secure in the first place. Then on the other hand, we know that in 2018, somebody got access to the whole Equifax database. It was mostly credit data, but who knows if it’s going to happen to the income database. As far as storing the data inside a database, it’s always insecure, because there’s just one point of failure — somebody gets access to those production keys and the whole database is gone.
We’re doing it differently. We are getting one-time access with the consumer’s permission. We hardly ever store the credentials and if we do, we actually store them in a secure, encrypted format. So even if you could steal the whole database, you will just see a bunch of ones and zeros, which doesn’t really help the hackers. Compared to sending emails to your bank, it’s way more secure.
I would argue that compared to before and after Truv, we’re actually making the whole industry much more secure and consumers’ data is now safer. I’m not even talking about fraud. The potential for fraud is gone, because we read the data directly from the data source.
What is important about this is that lenders can trust this data so they can actually process a file much faster. And I think that’s how lenders should be thinking about the time to decision: the higher quality the data and the more reliable the source is, the faster you should process those applications, while you should really give a closer look to those applications that sent you blurry Photoshopped pay stubs.
SW: How do you think about what to do next from a tech standpoint?
KK: It’s simple: You just need to listen to your customers and for B2B, you need to be the biggest customer advocate. Probably 40% of my time during the week I spend with customers. And I try to listen and understand what what’s missing. Right now, we’re selling sort of a point solution — it’s just the payroll and its certification just from Freddie. But ideally, I could sell you a 100% solution to your problem, which is verification of income and employment, assets and insurance. If I could sell you a 100% solution, then you can buy it from one platform, one vendor and kind of forget about this problem.
The Northstar that I keep telling my team: nobody wants your product, everybody wants a solution to their problem. And the more you use your product to solve their problem, the more you’re going to be successful as a business. Our No. 1 value is customer obsession. You can get everything else wrong, but if you build what customers want, you’ll be good as a business.
SW: What keeps you up at night?
KK: I always think about the vision gap: the gap between what I want to have and what we have today. How do I bridge that gap? I know where we’re going, I know how we should look. But then we have the reality of how we work today. And I think finding this kind of perfect balance between getting as fast as we can to the vision but also executing on the promise of what we give to our customers today is really challenging.
SW: What makes you different from a tech perspective?
KK: Alignment around like the customer. Darshana Shetty just won your Tech Trendsetters award. She’s our head of product and she got that award because she actually is the biggest customer advocate. And our engineering team will always be asking, how is this customer using that? And I think this philosophy that we’re here to solve customer problems makes us different. Everything else is like the tech stack. You can copy code, you can ride with ChatGPT these days. I think what makes a big difference are the cultural values around what we want to build as a business and how much we’re willing to focus on the execution and actually delivering on the promise.
SW: What makes you optimistic about 2024?
KK: Everybody is struggling today with the price increases, the volumes. That also means that everybody has a bit more room to think about how do you rebuild your tech stack today? I’m excited because this is the best time to be Truv because we provide substantial savings, we do solve 100% of your problem. I hope lenders spend some time thinking about how do they change things so they don’t have to hire the same big team and then let them go if there’s another downturn. About how they build something that makes their core employees five times more productive than they were in 2020.
Mortgage industry trade group Community Home Lenders of America (CHLA) is urging government agencies to begin to have conversations surrounding the impact of the jury verdict and potential court ruling in the Sitzer/Burnett commission lawsuit on lending practices.
In a letter submitted Thursday to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Sandra Thompson, Federal Housing Administration Commissioner Julia Gordon, Rural Housing Service Administrator Joaquin Altoro, and Department of Veterans Affairs secretary Denis McDonough, the CHLA expressed concerns over how a shift of the payment of buyer’s agent commissions from home sellers to homebuyers could impact mortgage lending to “minorities, veterans, and other underserved homebuyers.“
The letter states that the CHLA believes this shift could have “profound negative impact on the ability of home buyers to pay for or finance those commissions and on loan appraisal loan to value (LTV) calculations and requirements.”
CHLA executive director Scott Olson said the group decided to reach out to the government agencies after members began reporting that they were seeing contracts that explicitly stated that the buyer would be responsible for paying for their own representation in the wake of the Sitzer/Burnett verdict.
“Regardless of how this finally shakes out, it is clear that people are going to have to start dealing with this now,” Olson said. “We don’t have specific solutions for everything, but we have worked to identify what we consider to be the main concerns and are asking all the major players to look at this and see if we can work together to find solutions.”
Under the practice of cooperative compensation, buyer’s agency fees are baked into the sale price of the home, making the cost for buyer’s representation fully financeable. However, if this no longer becomes the case, the CHLA is concerned that “first-time homebuyers, families with lower incomes, veterans, and minority homebuyers could be adversely affected in their ability to purchase a home because of obstacles and complications related to the need to fund the buyer’s broker commission.”
Olson added: “There are the people that are the most stressed and challenged by the run-up in mortgage rates in terms of affordability, buying a home and getting into the homeownership market, so it is just one more monkey wrench that could be thrown into the equation.”
Additionally, the CHLA stated that is encourages policies that would allow down payment assistance programs to pay the cost of the buyer’s agent fee if there is a problem.
Olson and the CHLA also addressed how a change in the commission structure could hamper VA buyers, who may be using a VA loan because it does not require a down payment. Under current regulations, VA buyers are not allowed to pay for buyer’s representation.
According to Olson, the CHLA wants to get ahead of any potential issues that may arise out of commission structure changes, which is why he is encouraging the government agencies to start engaging in these types of conversations.
“I think it is important that we stay a step ahead of this,” Olson said. “We are just trying to position ourselves so that when issues come about and we get roadblocks, we have hopefully already started the dialogue of how we solve things.”
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) — the government regulatory body overseeing communications across a wide variety of media including radio, telephone cable and the internet — adopted a new series of rules on Wednesday designed to crack down on controversial lead generation methods, including “robocalling” and “robo-texting.”
The new rules as adopted could bring a wave of lawsuits against those using the so-called “lead gen loophole,” which includes mortgage lenders, insurers and law firms.
These new rules will “further protect consumers from scam communications by directly addressing some of the biggest vulnerabilities in America’s robo-text defenses and closing the ‘lead generator’ robocall/robo-texts loophole,” according to an announcement issued Wednesday by the FCC. “The new rules allow blocking of ‘red flagged’ robo-texting numbers, codifies do-not-call rules for texting, and encourages an opt-in approach for delivering email-to-text messages.”
There are three core provisions for the new rules. They will “allow the FCC to ‘red flag’ certain numbers, requiring mobile carriers to block texts from those numbers,” the FCC said. “The rules also codify that Do-Not-Call list protections apply to text messaging, making it illegal for marketing texts to be sent to numbers on the registry.”
They will also close what the FCC calls the “lead generator loophole,” through which “unscrupulous robocallers and robotexters inundate consumers with unwanted and illegal robocalls and robotexts,” the FCC explained.
“The new rules make it unequivocally clear that comparison shopping websites and lead generators must obtain consumer consent to receive robocalls and robotexts one seller at a time – rather than have a single consent apply to multiple telemarketers at once,” the FCC added. This change will disrupt the current way potential homebuyer leads are bought and sold.
Finally, the FCC has proposed additional steps for new action, including soliciting the public for additional action it can take to combat unwanted robocalls for consumers. A new notice published by the FCC “proposes additional blocking requirements when the FCC notifies a provider of a likely scam text-generating number,” it explained.
“The Commission will also seek further comment on text message authentication – modeled on the successful implementation of STIR/SHAKEN protocols for phone calls – including on the status of any industry standards in development,” the FCC said.
The new notice also proposes “requiring, rather than simply encouraging, providers to make email-to-text services opt-in,” the FCC explained.
Experts who spoke to Reuters speculated before the rules’ adoption that they could allow consumers to bring a wave of lawsuits against those taking advantage of the so-called loophole, with one attorney saying the rules would create a “target-rich environment” in which to sue companies that may rely on such leads under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).
“Businesses that use leads will need to be especially careful to ensure that the contacts they use are in compliance with the new law,” said Andrew Perrong, who has filed dozens of lawsuits both as a plaintiff and as an attorney representing clients suing over unwanted calls, Reuters reported.