It’s almost here – the moment we’ve all been waiting for – the announcement of Tech100 winners! But some lucky winners won’t have to wait until April 1, 2019 to find out if they won. We decided to give you a sneak peek right here of 10 winners!

While it appears that the Federal Housing Administration may not be backing mortgages for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, Fannie Mae declared recently that it supports (and will continue to support) mortgages for DACA recipients, also called Dreamers.

FEMA recently revealed it mistakenly leaked the banking information of 2.5 million U.S. disaster survivors. The Department of Homeland Security Office Inspector General discovered the leak in which FEMA shared sensitive, personally identifiable information of disaster survivors who previously used the company’s Sheltering Assistance program.

When it comes to utilizing technology in your business, is it better to build your own solution or to buy one that is already developed and ready to use? Well, that depends what you’re looking for, according to experts at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s 2019 Technology Solutions Conference.

Last year, nearly 250 senior executives at some of the nation’s largest mortgage companies asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to change the Loan Originator Compensation rule, which governs now much loan originators are paid. The lenders asked the CFPB to allow LOs to voluntarily reduce their compensation to allow them to compete in the market. Now, that group has a rather vocal opponent stating that those proposed changes are a “completely unacceptable” idea.

Last week, Facebook changed its ad policies to comply with anti-discrimination laws, and the move has broad implications for all of us in consumer finance and housing. But that's just one of three important strategy shifts the social media giant has made lately, and all are likely to impact those in the housing world. Here's what you need to know, and how you can adjust your processes to benefit.

Two weeks ago, the FHA took steps to limit risk to its single-family portfolio, announcing that it will flag some loans for manual underwriting. FHA's Chief Risk Officer Keith Becker told the WSJ just how many loans the agency thinks will be affected, adding that the FHA "felt that it was appropriate to take some steps to mitigate the risks we're seeing."

Last year was the year of the blockchain proof of concept. This year, we’re kicking it up a notch with real steps toward blockchain implementations. For many, blockchain is still a grand idea. For the forward thinking, it is already a reality in production level systems. Implementing blockchain is not risky or unconventional - it’s pragmatic.