Fannie and Freddie have increased their market share in multifamily to 60 percent compared to 52 percent two years ago, according to former Obama administration official Michael Stegman…
Michael Bright’s quick, effective response to the VA loan-churning problem that led to rapid prepayments in Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities earned kudos from senators during his confirmation hearing this week. Judging by the positive responses of members of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Bright, the administration’s choice to lead Ginnie Mae, will likely get the job. Bright received praise particularly for the swift disciplinary action he took against lender/issuers that were targeting and misleading VA borrowers into repeated refinancing without any clear benefit. Nine lenders were directed to take corrective actions while three of the worst offenders were barred from the agency’s multi-issuer security pools. Bright joined Ginnie Mae in July 2017 as executive vice president and chief operating officer. Two months later he began an investigation into rapidly prepaying VA loans ...
Lenders will be asking the Department of Housing and Urban Development to clarify the eligibility of borrowers with deferred immigration status for an FHA-insured loan. A mortgage industry trade group is currently drafting a letter on “a series of technical FHA handbook recommendations,” including greater clarity on loan applications submitted by borrowers registered under the government’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA status was offered to children who were brought illegally into the U.S. by their parents or guardians but have been in the country for most of their lives. The program was created by the Obama administration as a way for recipients to work legally in the country while Congress could agree on what to do with them. The program faces uncertainty after President Trump rescinded it in September last year as part of his administration’s zero-tolerance immigration ...
The U.S. Department of Agriculture wants to begin charging lenders a fee on each guaranteed rural-housing home loan beginning Jan. 2, 2019, to fund future information-technology upgrades. In a notice published in the July 13 Federal Register, the agency said it expects to levy a $25 user fee for using the Rural Housing Service’s automated loan-guarantee systems. Comments are due Sept. 11, 2018The fee collection is authorized under the 2016 Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act as a “technology fee” to improve program delivery and “reduce burden to the public.” The authorized fee can be up to $50 per loan. It will be collected at closing. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has been trying unsuccessfully to obtain authority from Congress to charge a similar fee to modernize its aging information technology. The USDA said it would notify lenders before the ...
The Mortgagee Review Board’s improvement of its processes and use of administrative actions has greatly eased its backlog of lender recertification cases, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s internal watchdog. An audit by HUD’s inspector general found a vastly improved enforcement of MRB mandates and application of penalties to lenders compared to previous findings. An analysis of the board’s FY 2016 activities found, among other things, that 19 lenders with the same violation received the same penalty. The report attributed the change to the board’s decision to assign staff to implement recommendations in the IG’s evaluation report in May 2009. The 2009 audit raised concerns about the speed of the MRB process, the number of cases on which the board rules, and the magnitude of penalties it levies. The MRB rules on cases against FHA lenders where there ...
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