The housing meltdown revealed a lot of unsafe lending practices, but some advocates say the mortgage industry may be ignoring successful strategies for expanding homeownership by restricting new lending to only those with squeaky-clean credit. “The lesson of the financial crisis can’t be that homeownership is bad, or only for a small group,” said Judith Jacobson, the deputy director and general counsel for the Massachusetts Housing Partnership during a panel discussion hosted by progressive nonprofit Center for American Progress this week. Jacobson and others described programs developed in Massachusetts and North Carolina that...

With additional rulemaking still expected from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to flesh out some loan originator compensation provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, state regulators are getting ready to release their own examination guidelines related to mortgage originator compensation for non-depository institutions, based on the Federal Reserve’s rule issued earlier this year. The Conference of State Bank Supervisors and the American Association of Residential Mort-gage Regulators have been working together since May drafting guidelines for implementation of the...

Regulators should take stronger actions to ensure that homeowners in need of loan modification are treated fairly and that servicers increase their efforts to implement newer Making Home Affordable (MHA) programs, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. The GAO said that while the Department of the Treasury has taken a number of steps to implement its previous recommendations to improve the program, it has not yet taken steps to improve servicer oversight, among other recommendations made by the watchdog agency. Treasury began publishing quarterly assessments of servicer performance under the Home Affordable Modification Program and...

The outstanding supply of home-equity loans in the market declined further in the second quarter of 2011, hitting its lowest level in almost six years, but there are signs that the HEL market is at least stabilizing. The Federal Reserve reported a balance of $904.4 billion of home-equity lines of credit and closed-end second mortgages outstanding as of the end of June, down 2.3 percent from the first quarter and 9.2 percent lower than a year ago. The vast majority of the HEL market is on the books of banks, thrifts and credit unions, which collectively held $827.7 billion in portfolio. Finance companies, some of them owned by... [Includes two data]

Industry groups are ramping up efforts to extend conforming loan limits currently available in high-cost markets that are set to expire at the end of the month, focusing their lobbying efforts on appropriations legislation in the House. The National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders are dou-bling their efforts to persuade Congress to extend current limits for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA, which top out at $729,750 for single-family units in the lower 48. Barring legislative action, the top loan limit will drop to $625,500 on Oct. 1. In addition to the lower ceiling, loan limits in most high-cost markets will...

Expect a gradual but deliberate increase in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee fees to a level that more closely reflects what a private market would charge, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced this week. In a speech at the American Mortgage Conference in Raleigh, NC, FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco said that since Fannie and Freddie were placed into government conservatorship three years ago this month, the two government-sponsored enterprises have steadily increased g-fees and lessened the degree of cross subsidization in credit pricing. Yet, DeMarco noted, the GSEs’ current pricing for credit guarantees “is...

State regulators are gradually working through the pile of licensing applications submitted by mortgage companies and loan originators. The total number of unique entities holding state licenses increased 7.2 percent during the second quarter, reaching 140,421, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of data from the National Mortgage Licensing System. The vast majority of those licenses (76 percent) are held by individual loan officers. Regulators still had some 35,024 licensing applications pending at the end of June, but that was down 23 percent from the previous quarter. And the number of new applications submitted during...

For a growing number of lenders, the decision to adopt a mortgage pipeline hedging strategy is fast becoming less of an innovative option and more about adapting to a business necessity to stay ahead of the curve, according to a white paper by MCT Trading Inc. MCT, a San Diego-based risk management and advisory services company, details in its recently issued paper the intricacies for mortgage bankers considering the switch from a best efforts delivery platform to a mandatory delivery model. "There are a number of different pitfalls lenders need to be cognizant of when making the move from best efforts loan sales to...

The roiling mortgage lending marketplace continues to present some lenders with even more challenges that force the adoption of coping strategies to cut their losses, while opening up fresh opportunities for others to deploy the next phase in their long-term strategic plans. loanDepot.com, based in Foothill Ranch, CA, the latest start-up by the founders of E*TRADE Mortgage and LendingTree Loans, falls into the latter category, recently launching its new national expansion plan with the opening of a new origination center in Franklin, TN, just outside of Nashville. Company President Tomo Yebisu said Franklin was chosen because of...

The official watchdog of the Federal Housing Finance Agency says it will monitor and continuously assess the performance of its audits, evaluations and investigations of the Finance Agency over the next couple of years.The FHFA’s Office of Inspector General, which released its new strategic plan for the 2012-2014 fiscal years last week, said it has developed four core strategic performance goals: adding value, operating with integrity, promoting productivity and valuing employees.