Mortgage originations late last year sank to the lowest production level since the bottom fell out of financial markets in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to a new market analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. Lenders generated an estimated $305 billion in new originations during the fourth quarter of last year, a 33.7 percent decline from the third quarter. The mortgage market hasnt been that slow since the fourth quarter of 2008, when production totaled just $260 billion. Production volume was...[Includes two data charts]
Read More
The Federal Housing Finance Agencys new servicing project will take a close look at how large-scale packages of mortgage-servicing rights are sold and transferred, but will also delve into what mortgage bankers thought was a dead issue: minimum servicing fees paid to processors. You might say that FHFA is tackling the whole servicing arena in a big way, said one mortgage consultant who has been briefed on the agencys plans. The regulators sudden interest in transfers comes...
Read More
Increased compliance costs in recent years have done little to dampen demand for mortgage servicing rights, according to industry analysts. The amount of capital has far outstripped the available supply, said Dashiell Robinson, a managing director at Wells Fargo Securities, during last weeks ABS Vegas conference sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network. William Roehrenbeck, chairman and CEO of Arvest Mortgage Company, said...
Read More
Concerns about the potential harmful effects that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureaus qualified-mortgage standard might have in the manufactured housing sector struck like lighting at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee this week, with CFPB Director Richard Cordray bristling at a perceived personal attack from a GOP member and demanding he be treated with respect. Storm clouds quickly gathered as Rep. Steve Pearce, R-NM, complained that the bureaus QM rules and restrictions on high-cost loans would pretty much exclude manufactured housing and then accused Cordray of deliberately trying to squash lower-income families. Fifty percent of the homes in New Mexico are...
Read More
Its been several years since a top-10 ranked lender changed hands, but it could happen this year with speculation falling on PHH Mortgage and Flagstar Bancorp. Both firms own large servicing portfolios but have sold servicing strips while retaining a subservicing relationship with the consumer. Investment banking sources and competitors familiar with the two say a sale of either is...
Read More
Amid growing calls by lawmakers and policy advocates to divert some of Fannie Maes and Freddie Macs increasing profitability to an affordable housing commitment, industry observers speculate that new Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt is seriously inclined to act that way. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 requires the government-sponsored enterprises to make annual contributions to the National Housing Trust Fund and Capital Magnet Fund. Fannie and Freddie were put in government conservatorship before they ever made any contribution. Late last week, more than 30 Senate Democrats told...
Read More
The Senate was scheduled to vote late this week on legislation that would delay excessive increases in flood-insurance premiums that are set to take effect as a result of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012. Earlier this week, the Senate voted 86 to 13 to move forward with debate on the Homeowner Insurance Affordability Act (S. 1926), a bipartisan bill that was introduced in the Senate and in the House of Representatives to fix some of the ill effects of the Biggert-Waters Act. The vote stopped a filibuster seeking more subsidy cuts to the program. Sponsored by Sens. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, and Johnny Iskason, R-GA, the bill would delay...
Read More
One of the complications of the federal governments takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has been the injection of uncertainty over whether the two government-sponsored enterprises can foreclose by advertisement due to Uncle Sams control of the companies. That has bred some novel legal arguments against the GSEs ability in this regard, but they have met with mixed results thus far. Over the past several months, one of the newer arguments challenging foreclosure by borrowers is...
Read More