As far as pricing goes, if g-fees are raised Fannie and Freddie could earn more money – cash that ultimately would wind up at the Treasury Department, which sweeps most of their earnings each quarter.

A new trade group is showing true love for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Also, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is giving lenders some breathing room on the Qualified Mortgage/Ability-to-Repay rule.

One of the boldest underwriting moves was taken by TD Bank, which recently announced a portfolio loan that has a downpayment requirement as low as 3 percent.

Reverse mortgages guaranteed by the government are due and payable upon the death of the homeowner, the sale of the home, and other conditions, including the failure to reside in the property or pay the taxes and insurance.

The current average interest rate on the mortgages is 3.7 percent. Some 64.3 percent of the loans are structured with graduated payments while the rest are fixed-rate mortgages.

Originally, the technology vendor blamed the shutdown on a cyber-attack by hackers, but then a few weeks later ruled out that explanation.

Lobbyists tracking the bill now believe that a “negotiated” final measure will not be ready for a full committee vote until possibly mid-May.

Meanwhile, rumors abound that Fannie and Freddie may once again be looking at the possibility of selling some of its nonperforming mortgages…

Lenders should expect additional enforcement actions from the CFPB along the lines of last year’s move against Castle & Cooke Mortgage LLC, where regulators targeted not just the firm but the executives making the decisions, warned Benjamin Olson, counsel at the law firm of Buckley Sandler. “While this is the only public action, it is certainly not the only action the bureau is currently undertaking” to enforce its loan originator compensation rules, said Olson, former deputy assistant director in the bureau’s Office of Regulations, during a webinar last week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance Publications, which publishes Inside the CFPB. “We are seeing civil investigative demands and the bureau’s equivalent to the subpoena, where the CFPB is diving into an...

A new research report from analysts at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services confirms earlier industry accounts that mortgage servicers are adapting to the CFPB’s newly implemented mortgage servicing rules, and that the rules are having the effects regulators intended. Back in 2013, S&P asked its ranked servicers to complete CFPB questionnaires as part of its semiannual Servicer Evaluation Analytical Methodology process. “We sent a questionnaire with our mid-year SEAM regarding compliance plans and readiness levels, and asked servicers to complete the questionnaires again after Jan. 10 [the implementation date of the new rules], to indicate their levels of compliance,” analysts at the ratings service said. The questionnaire included key areas of compliance: continuity of contact; dual-track foreclosure; servicing transfers; error...