The liberal-leaning ACLU thinks troubled mortgagors are getting the shaft from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

While Ocwen Financial is laying off staffers, other firms are hiring, including Churchill Mortgage of Brentwood, TN.

With the increase, the average g-fee for new loans will be in the range of 60 basis points. But there is some good news: FHFA said it would eliminate the up-front “adverse market” fee of 25 bps assessed on all but the four states “whose foreclosure carrying costs are more than two standard deviations greater than the national average.”

Banks maintain huge reserves of roughly $21.3 billion to cover residential loan repurchase requests, Inside Mortgage Trends discovered.

Due diligence was completed on 33 percent of the loans by American Mortgage Consultants. The firm found compliance exceptions regarding Truth in Lending Act requirements, right to cancel and HUD-1 forms.

Borrowers with existing FHA-insured mortgages may continue to utilize the agency’s streamline refinance program regardless of their loan balance. The current cap of $271,050 for “low cost” areas will remain unchanged.

Bexil American Mortgage and its subsidiary appear to be in a growth mode. They're looking to buy a retail lender and MSRs.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae issued a combined $82.33 billion in new single-family MBS during November, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. New MBS issuance by the three agencies was off 12.0 percent from October, continuing a steady downturn that’s been under way since April 2013. Production last month was off a whopping 58.7 percent from November 2012, when Fannie and Freddie volume spurted higher as issuers maneuvered to avoid a pending increase in MBS guaranty fees charged by the two government-sponsored enterprises. Tumbling refinance activity was...[Includes two data charts]

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has begun meeting with various industry groups to get a clearer sense of where it needs to go to develop the most appropriate accounting treatment for to-be-announced transactions. Last Friday, FASB met with both the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association to vet some of the board’s tentative decisions on its project for accounting for repos, dollar rolls and TBA transactions, and the likely effect those decisions could have. Meetings with other groups have taken place...

Ability-to-repay requirements set by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could increase losses, liquidation timelines and loan modifications for non-agency MBS, according to Standard & Poor’s. The new requirements take effect Jan. 10 and include assignee liability for certain loans. Liability from the ATR requirements and qualified-mortgage standards are only a concern for non-agency MBS issuers and investors if a borrower defaults. Given the exceptionally strong performance of jumbo MBS issued since 2010, S&P said the threat of higher losses will generally be mild for jumbo MBS. However, performance could eventually decline...