Financial Services

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2018

Financial Services [Abstract]

Financial Services

5. Financial Services

Our Financial Services are principally comprised of our mortgage lending operations, Inspire Home Loans, Inc. (which we refer to as “Inspire”).  Inspire, is a full-service mortgage lender and primarily originates mortgage loans for our homebuyers. Inspire sells substantially all of the loans it originates and their related servicing rights in the secondary mortgage market within a short period of time after origination, generally within 30 days.  Inspire primarily finances these loans under its mortgage repurchase facilities.  Mortgage loans in process for which interest rates were committed to borrowers totaled approximately $30.5 million and $10.0 million at September 30, 2018 and December 31, 2017, respectively, and carried a weighted average interest rate of approximately 4.8%, and 4.2%, respectively.  As of September 30, 2018, Inspire had mortgage loans held for sale with an aggregate fair value of $62.4 million and an aggregate outstanding principal balance of $60.0 million. Interest rate risks related to these obligations are mitigated by the preselling of loans to investors or through our interest rate hedging program.

Mortgage loans held-for-sale, including the rights to service the mortgage loans, as well as the derivative instrument used to economically hedge our interest rate risk, which are typically forward commitments on mortgage backed securities, are carried at fair value and changes in fair value are reflected in Financial Services Revenue on the consolidated statement of operations. Management believes carrying loans held-for-sale at fair value improves financial reporting by mitigating volatility in reported earnings caused by measuring the fair value of the loans and the derivative instruments used to economically hedge them without having to apply complex hedge accounting provisions.