African-American homeowners in New York City are seeking certification of a class action alleging that the government’s distressed-loan sale program discriminates against black homeowners. The suit alleges that black FHA homeowners in default are disproportionately affected by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s note sale program and the subsequent “predatory” mortgage servicing. HUD Secretary Julian Castro, FHA Commissioner Ed Golding, Caliber Home Loans and U.S. Bank Trust were named defendants in the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The defendants’ business practices allegedly violated the plaintiffs’ due-process rights as well as the Fair Housing Act. Under the note sale program, delinquent FHA mortgages are pooled and auctioned off to the highest bidder. According to the plaintiffs, the bidders are usually private-equity firms or ...

Mortgage Company President Charged with Defrauding Ginnie Mae. Robert Pena, president and founder of the now-defunct Mortgage Security Inc., was charged in federal district court in Boston for allegedly bilking Ginnie Mae out of nearly $3 million. MSI was an approved participant in the Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities program, pooling eligible single-family mortgages and selling the securitized products to investors. The firm also serviced the underlying loans. In 2011, Pena allegedly began diverting borrower payments and huge loan-payoff amounts into secret accounts, which he used to fund personal and business activities. Likewise, he is said to have funneled borrowers’ escrow funds and mortgage-insurance premiums into other personal accounts. In total, Pena pocketed $3 million due Ginnie Mae, which had to pay investors whose investments it had guaranteed, according to the ...

Marianne Lake, Chase’s CFO, said jumbos are the bank’s “first priority” among mortgage originations.

The wholesale-broker market held its ground, maintaining a 10.0 percent share of new originations, Inside Mortgage Finance found.

One real estate agent did not mince words: "TRID is a nuisance and should be done away with immediately if not sooner. Shut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”

PHH says loss of the HSBC subservicing contract on the 139,000 loans will reduce pre-tax earnings by $10 million.

California, Alaska, and South Dakota are the only states required to disclose death on property information in written disclosures…

All three major mortgage-production channels posted significant gains in volume from the first quarter of 2016 to the second, but retail posted the biggest increase. According to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis, an estimated $300 billion in first-lien mortgages were originated through retail platforms during the second quarter, including traditional brick-and-mortar offices and consumer-direct efforts. That was up 36.4 percent from the first three months of the year, and a scant 1.4 percent higher on a year-to-date basis. The retail share edged up to 58.8 percent, the highest it’s been in two years. Wells Fargo remained...[Includes four data tables]

FHFA estimates there are roughly 300,000 homeowners potentially eligible to refinance through HARP.

The nation’s subservicers increased their base of contracts to $1.615 trillion in the second quarter, a modest 1.6 percent gain from the prior period, but a handsome 17.0 percent improvement from the same period a year earlier, according to survey figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance. Overall, these third-party processing vendors – who split the monthly fee with the actual owner of the servicing strip – control 15.9 percent of all residential mortgage debt in the nation. A year ago the reading was 14.0 percent. And it’s...[Includes one data table]