Limitations spanning more than three years on Ocwen Financial’s ability to acquire servicing could be ending soon. Company officials stress that a resumption of servicing acquisitions will help Ocwen see some benefits from economies of scale. In the three years since the New York Department of Financial Services started preventing Ocwen from acquiring servicing, Ocwen’s portfolio has declined by more than 50.0 percent, hitting an unpaid principal balance of $209.09 billion ...

Potential mortgage borrowers with bad credit or no credit should proceed with caution if they have been offered a subprime mortgage, according to advice from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB published a blog post this week focusing on the homebuying process for people with “poor” credit scores. The post, part of a series on home purchase advice, was authored by Megan Thibos, a policy analyst with the CFPB’s mortgage markets team. The post suggested that ...

The $356.40 million jumbo mortgage-backed security JPMorgan Chase issued in February 2014 has performed well, according to Kroll Bond Rating Agency. Since issuance, the rating service said JPMorgan Mortgage Trust 2014-1 has experienced minimal delinquencies, no credit-based loan modifications and no losses. As of the end of January, the MBS had an unpaid principal balance of $202.30 million and one mortgage in the deal was 30 days ... [Includes two briefs]

The FHA is nearing full implementation of a new loan review system (LRS) for managing FHA’s Title II single-family quality-control processes. No specific implementation date has been set but it could be sometime in the second quarter, the agency said. The LRS builds on FHA’s efforts to align the documentation of loan-review results. In addition, it incorporates the Single-Family Housing Loan Quality Assessment Methodology or defect taxonomy.The FHA said the new system would not be used to manage any aspect of the agency’s standard loan origination or endorsement processes. Rather, it would be used to review of test cases submitted by lenders seeking unconditional direct-endorsement authority. It would be used as well for various post-endorsement reviews of forward single-family loans. After the ...

By creating liquidity in Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities, liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) policies have attracted lenders – mostly nonbanks – whose funding relies more on securitizations – toward FHA loan originations, according to a new paper published by academicians. The paper, “Nonbanks and Lending Standards in Mortgage Markets: The Spillovers from Liquidity Regulation,” maintains that such lenders approve more FHA loans because they can sell the loans easily, given the high liquidity of the securitized product. The greater liquidity in Ginnie MBS has resulted in higher market share and eased standards especially for nonbanks and lenders with less deposit funding. It also has led to tighter standards for conventional mortgages, which are eligible for government sponsored enterprise securitization, wrote Pedro Gete and Michael Reher, researchers in the ...

Relators in a False Claims Act lawsuit must allege misconduct that has not already been publicly disclosed or risk dismissal of their qui tam claims, according to the U.S. Appeals Court for the Sixth Circuit. In U.S. ex rel. Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc. v. U.S. Bank, the court ruled that whistleblowers cannot raise “substantially the same allegations or transactions” that have been previously alleged in an action or claim and publicly disclosed. The qui tam plaintiff must be the original source of the allegations, the court said. Only certain disclosures trigger the prohibition, the court noted. They include disclosures “in a federal criminal, civil or administrative hearing in which the government or its agent is a party,” or in a Government Accountability Office or other federal report, hearing, audit or investigation, or from the news media. n this case, the relator/plaintiff alleged that U.S. Bank initiated foreclosure proceedings ...

Lenders originated $4.93 billion of rural housing loans with a U.S. Department of Agriculture guarantee during the fourth quarter of last year, 33.2 percent more than volume reported during the same period the year prior, according to the Housing Assistance Council’s report on USDA Rural Housing program obligations. USDA provided guarantees under the Section 502 Guaranteed Rural Housing Loan program to 34,412 rural housing loans in the fourth quarter, up from 26,889 loans ($3.7 billion) at the end of 2015. The program is the largest of the USDA’s single-family housing programs. For the Section 502 Direct Guarantee program, guarantees exceeded $196.6 million (1,492 loans), up from $174.7 million (1,334 loans) at the end of 2015. Very low-income (VLI) loan obligations as a percentage of taxpayer funds allocated to the USDA direct loan guarantee program were 38.9 percent, exceeding the ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general is warning FHA appraisers to be careful with their state certification numbers lest they fall victim to identity thieves. The HUD IG said it has uncovered a series of appraiser identity thefts that resulted from the unauthorized use of a state-issued certification number of an FHA roster appraiser. The FHA roster appraiser was unaware of the theft until its discovery, usually by accident, the IG said. Such incidents occur when an FHA appraiser provides his or her personal identification number (PIN) for the desktop appraisal software to a colleague or supervisor. Reasons for providing the PIN varied, i.e., the PIN was needed to keep the process moving, the lender requested a fast turnaround, or for contingency, in case the roster appraiser was away or unavailable. Such actions raise the risks for theft and misuse because the appraiser can never be sure the ...

IRS to Require More Information About Taxpayers’ Home Mortgage. Beginning tax year 2017, the Internal Revenue Service will require taxpayers to disclose additional information about their home mortgages. Currently, the IRS only requires disclosure of the loan’s principal balance at the beginning of the year, origination date and address of property securing the loan. Under the revised rule, taxpayers must report on the 2017 Form 1098 information such as mortgage insurance premium, confirmation that the address of the property is the same as the borrower’s address, description of the property in case the address is unreported, and the number of mortgaged properties owned by the taxpayer. Specifically, the information will help the IRS determine whether deducted mortgage interest is within the $1 million limit on home acquisition debt and $100,000 of home-equity debt, and whether the ...

But the numbers need to be put into perspective: Agency MBS production in the first two months of 2017 was up 36.3 percent from the same period last year…