MISMO’s Seth Appleton joining USMI as president

Seth Appleton, currently the president of Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization, will take the top job at the U.S. Mortgage Insurers, starting in January.

The USMI role has been vacant since July, when Lindsey Johnson left to become president and CEO of the Consumer Bankers Association.

Appleton became president of MISMO in December 2020. He is also currently a co-chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Housing Council. He previously was the assistant secretary for policy development and research at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“Seth’s diverse experience in senior roles at HUD, Ginnie Mae, MISMO, and on Capitol Hill stand out,” said Adolfo Marzol, the USMI’s chairman. “He knows how to collaborate to get things done in Washington, and we are excited to bring his proven leadership to USMI.”

Seth Appleton

U.S. Department of Housing and U/Mitch Miller

Jan Davis, MISMO’s vice president of operations for more than 10 years, is the acting president. Previously Davis was at Fannie Mae for more than two decades, where she served as a director in Single Family Loan Operations and Enterprise System Operations.

“Seth has been an exemplary leader of MISMO, successfully guiding the organization in developing new standards that improve efficiency, reduce costs, and accelerate the mortgage industry’s digital transformation,” said Bob Broeksmit, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s president and CEO, in its own press release. “MISMO’s momentum will continue unabated during the active search for its next president.”

The MBA already posted the MISMO job on its website.

The private mortgage insurance industry’s growth continued to outpace that of the Federal Housing Administration, a Keefe, Bruyette & Woods report noted.

At the end of the third quarter, total MI insurance-in-force was $2.71 trillion, up 2.2% from the second quarter. Private MI recorded a 2.5% quarter-to-quarter increase in IIF and now made up 55%, or $1.49 trillion, of the total as of Sept. 30, with the share increasing 10% over that time, Bose George, a KBW analyst, noted.

However, the FHA’s IIF grew for the second quarter in a row, this time by 2%, after eight periods where it dropped. The share pickup was largely driven by rising interest rates.

But 2023 could be a tough year for the private MIs, Fitch Ratings said.

“A slowdown in job growth and rising unemployment next year would worsen mortgage borrowers’ ability to stay current on their loans, raising the level of mortgage insurance claims,” said Chris Grimes, a director at Fitch, in a press release. “However, a strong U.S. labor market and post-pandemic home equity build up remain supportive of stability in the U.S. mortgage insurance sector in 2023.”

A material decline in home prices next year will impact the frequency and severity of claim losses. But Grimes did soften the blow in his outlook.

“Positively for mortgage insurers, delinquencies across all household liabilities remained low in recent quarters, and household debt service and leverage continue to be relatively low compared with historical standards,” Grimes said.