Industry Watch: CCM, Pennymac, Checkr and others make key moves in August

CrossCountry Mortgage (CCM) closed its acquisition of Two Harbors Investment Corp. (TWO), expanding its mortgage servicing reach through the addition of wholly owned subsidiary RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing. The deal pays TWO shareholders $12 per share of common stock, plus a stub dividend of $0.20326 per share. It marks the conclusion of CCM’s contentious bidding war with the parent of United Wholesale Mortgage, though UWM has sued Two Harbors, alleging willful breach of contract and fraud — claims TWO has denied.

Pennymac announced it became the first large servicer to successfully implement the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ new loss mitigation waterfall, which includes a partial claim option designed to help veterans bring their delinquent VA-backed mortgages current. The move by Pennymac comes well in advance of the Nov. 28 deadline for VA servicers.

AI-based verification company Checkr has acquired Truv, a provider of real-time verification, payroll and bank connectivity services. Checkr, the parent company of Truework, noted that the move strengthens its existing mortgage business and marks its expansion into the government space through Truv’s contracts with state agencies administering social services programs such as Medicaid and SNAP.

Better Mortgage and Coinbase announced the general availability of Better’s token-backed conforming mortgage product. First announced in March and initially available on a limited basis, the offering is the first crypto-backed mortgage product approved by Fannie Mae that does not require borrowers to liquidate their cryptocurrency holdings into cash.

Houston-based mortgage brokerage Matador Lending announced a strategic merger with GoRascal Inc. The transaction expands GoRascal’s presence in Texas and gives Matador’s team of nearly 50 originators access to a nationwide broker platform. Matador will continue to operate under its own name.

Evergreen Moneysource Mortgage Co. has launched BrokerBrand TPO, a third-party origination channel for independent mortgage brokers. The new channel will be led by Bob Marseilles, senior vice president of TPO, and will include conventional, government, jumbo and specialized mortgage products.

Michigan-based real estate appraisal management company Class Valuation has acquired Illinois-based valuation firm Allstate Appraisal. The deal strengthens Class Valuation’s reach in both the residential and commercial spaces in appraisal review, litigation support and specialized valuation services.

Longbridge Financial introduced RAMP, short for Reverse Analytics Market Platform, a reverse mortgage market intelligence tool. The free platform, which is available in retail and third-party origination versions, lets users research data on home equity conversion mortgages from the Federal Housing Administration, including origination volumes, market share, product types and geographic searches to the ZIP code level.

The Mortgage Office, a loan servicing and origination software provider, has launched TMO Analytics, a data platform that lets private lenders benchmark their portfolios against the real market performance of hundreds of thousands of debt-service coverage ratio and residential transition loans. Using market intelligence data from recently acquired SFR Analytics, the new offering also includes Private Lender Radar, a pipeline platform that lets origination teams identify borrower prospects and verify them against recorded transaction histories.

FirstClose announced a partnership with MeridianLink to integrate its home equity order management tools into the MeridianLink Mortgage loan origination system. The integration aims to centralize valuation and settlement ordering and provide coordination and status tracking across the origination process.

MeridianLink separately announced that it has acquired Credit Mountain, an AI-native financial wellness platform designed to help financial institutions work with borrowers who were declined for a loan improve their credit profile through education, digital coaching and financial improvement plans.

CommLoan unveiled an upgraded commercial real estate lending platform. Features include a redesigned loan pipeline and an AI-powered lender matching engine that incorporates lender and deal data drawing on the company’s proprietary dataset to improve matching accuracy over time.

Luminate Bank has acquired select assets from First State Mortgage Services. The deal brings many members of First State over to Luminate and expands the Minneapolis-headquartered bank’s presence in the Midwest.

Real estate analytics firm Attom has launched the Attom Home Price Index, which provides residential price trends and forecasts across the U.S., from the national level to hyperlocal census blocks. Designed to help companies make investment, valuation and risk decisions, the tool is updated monthly and includes separate indexes for single-family homes, condominiums and townhomes — plus an all-residential composite — with a dataset spanning more than 30 years of historical home price trends and forecasts extending up to 36 months.

Seattle-based mortgage tech company Friday Harbor announced it has expanded its pre-underwriting capabilities for non-qualified mortgage and other non-agency lending programs, allowing lenders to evaluate non-QM bank statement and certain jumbo loans earlier in the origination process, including calculating qualifying income for bank statement borrowers.

Online real estate marketplace CoStar Group has completed its $800 million acquisition of new-home construction data firm Zonda in a deal that also includes the online platforms NewHomeSource and Livabl.