PHH Corp., the Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have, in recent weeks, gone back and forth with the filing of briefs on multiple angles associated with the legal dispute the lender has had with the CFPB over alleged violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. However, it looks like the separation of powers under the U.S. Constitution will play a more decisive role in the outcome than will issues related to RESPA, according to some top legal observers. PHH and the DOJ both submitted responses to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals on Dec. 22, the deadline set by the court. The government is seeking an en banc review by the full appeals court of a ruling by a three-judge panel. In its brief, the mortgage lender said...
Regulators are working to get a better understanding about the ownership of mortgages, particularly for the span between origination and final funding, according to the Office of Financial Research. “Regulators now collect origination data and loan performance data about much of the home mortgage market,” the OFR said in its recently published 2016 financial stability report. “However, they do not collect data about ownership of a mortgage between origination and final funding. Information on this short phase in the life of a loan is needed for a full picture of risks.” The OFR, an office of the Treasury Department that was established by the Dodd-Frank Act, noted...
Ever since the nation’s financial crisis, commercial banks and other depositories have dominated the second-lien business and likely will continue to do so in the coming years, but that isn’t stopping nonbanks from testing the waters once again. According to research by Inside Mortgage Finance, several nonbanks have slipped back into the market, albeit with muted production volumes. And many of the firms that have crept back in are partnering with depositories. The reason for the strategy is...
A year from now, PHH Mortgage likely won’t be around, at least not as a conventional mortgage-banking franchise that originates residential loans and retains servicing rights. That’s what analysts and investment bankers who follow the stock now believe, especially in light of the company’s recent announcement that it will sell its $72 billion portfolio of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mortgage servicing rights to New Residential Investment Corp. for $612 million or 84 basis points. Once completed, the sale – along with a pending disposal of its Ginnie Mae MSR – will leave...
Small servicers have significantly outpaced larger servicers in terms of growth in the past year. While many nonbanks focused on servicing nonperforming mortgages in the past, the more recent growth by small servicers has been in performing mortgages, including those originated in-house. The total unpaid principal balance of single-family mortgages outstanding at the end of the third quarter of 2016 was $10.11 trillion, up by 1.6 percent, according to the Federal Reserve. Growth was...
Mortgage lenders delivered a hefty $299.25 billion of single-family home loans into the mortgage-backed securities platforms at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the fourth quarter of 2016, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking. Production in the final three months of 2016 was up just 5.7 percent from the third quarter at the two government-sponsored enterprises. But it was the biggest output since the second quarter of 2013, when the mortgage market was wrapping up a 12-month binge of activity with $337.74 billion in Fannie/Freddie MBS issuance. The strong finish – GSE business was up in each quarter of 2016 – put...[Includes three data tables]
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