An internal audit of the FHA/Home Affordable Modification Program’s partial-claim option uncovered flaws that cost taxpayers millions of dollars in ineligible claims. According to a recent report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General, HUD’s claim-payment controls were inadequate. As a result, the agency paid more than $22 million in unsupported claims and $103,925 in ineligible claims, the report concluded. Auditors said HUD did not design and implement strong safeguards to detect and prevent improper claims. Because of the flaws, the system allowed payment of more than one claim with a modification or FHA-HAMP option in a 24-month period, the report said. In addition, auditors found duplicate claims, partial claims in excess of 30 percent of the unpaid principal balance at initial default, and non-HAMP partial claims after HUD ...

Mortgage originators are foregoing lending to borrowers who are more likely to become delinquent to avoid strict and unrealistic FHA timelines and cost limits, according to an Urban Institute study. Results of the study, which was issued in December, were again highlighted during a recent Housing Finance Policy Center seminar on servicing at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC. Citing the study she wrote, Laurie Goodman, director of the HFPC, said regulatory uncertainty and a broken servicer-compensation model were partly responsible for tight credit. The high cost of servicing non-performing mortgages and regulatory uncertainty regarding the treatment of delinquent borrowers have made lenders apprehensive about making loans that have even a slight chance of defaulting, she said. Long foreclosure delays in judicial states, burdensome foreclosure guidelines and apparently ...

The Blackstone Group’s bid to acquire VA lender PMAC Mortgage, Chino Hills, CA, appears to have stalled. Talks between the two companies are now on hold and neither firm has commented. An industry source suggested that cash might not be the issue but a “clash of corporate cultures. PMAC Lending Services, which acquired Residential Financial Corp. last year, was ranked 61st on Inside FHA/VA Lending’s top 100 VA lenders in 2014. The company reported $328.2 million in total VA originations last year, reporting an 18.5 percent increase in the fourth quarter from the previous quarter and a 182.1 percent spike in loan volume year-over-year. It accounted for 0.3 percent of the VA market. Blackstone is a global investment firm with nearly $300 billion in assets under management. Last year, the company announced the hiring of 15,000 U.S. veterans across its portfolio companies in ...

Ellington believes that one of the biggest opportunities for the company will be products geared toward self-employed borrowers.

A new regulatory relief bill drafted by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-AL, would guarantee that the common securitization platform project managed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be open to all MBS issuers “as soon as practicable,” and structured as a nonprofit utility. The legislation, which also expands the risk-transfer activities of the two government-sponsored enterprises, lays the groundwork for the CSP being transferred away from the GSEs and managed by a third-party provider. But that doesn’t mean...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is trying to put a dollar amount on damages it believes Nomura Holdings and RBS Securities should pay after a federal judge found the companies liable in connection with Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s pre-crisis investments in non-agency MBS. Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said the complex case boiled down to whether the defendants accurately described in the offering documents the mortgages that underlie the securities sold to the government-sponsored enterprises. It was...

Most real estate investment trusts that invest heavily in residential MBS reported modest declines in the fair value of their MBS holdings during the first quarter, according to an analysis and ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. A group of 16 publicly traded mortgage REITs held a combined $263.94 billion of agency and non-agency MBS as of the end of March. That was down 6.6 percent from the previous quarter, but represented a 1.1 percent increase over the first quarter of 2014. Some 92.6 percent of the group’s residential mortgage securities holdings were...[Includes one data chart]

Although the FHA has been losing ground for several years to the private MIs, the program saw a surge in refis in March...

To date, the FHFA has received 1,300 comment letters on the proposed ban on captive insurance firms.

Ocwen announced the sale of the $45 billion early this spring, but never identified the buyer.