The Mortgage Bankers Association has recommended steps to address the VA appraiser shortage and increased appraisal turn times. The industry group made its recommendations in a recent letter to Jeffrey London, executive director of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Loan Guaranty Service, based on a roundtable discussion between MBA and other industry stakeholders in March. Stakeholders expressed their concern for the lack of VA appraisers and longer waiting periods for appraisal reports. Appraiser shortage is an ongoing problem for the VA, and has resulted in delayed loan closings, particularly in highly rural areas. Some states, like Oregon, have very few appraisers, the MBA pointed out.“This delay may force veterans to choose other loan programs to meet certain deadlines or face other adverse outcomes,” the MBA letter warned. On the other hand, the ...

The White House this week officially nominated industry veteran Brian Montgomery to be the next FHA commissioner and assistant secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In a related development, the Senate on Thursday confirmed the nomination of Pamela Pantenaude as HUD deputy secretary, three months to the day the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs approved her nomination. Montgomery, currently vice chairman of the Washington-based business-consulting firm The Collingwood Group, is no stranger to the job. He previously served as FHA commissioner/HUD assistant secretary during the second Bush administration and as acting HUD secretary in January 2009. As FHA commissioner, Montgomery lead legislative efforts to preserve the nation’s affordable rental housing stock while reducing rental-assistance costs and the cost of ...

The Milken Institute – a nonpartisan think tank – established a new policy team last week to work on issues involving housing finance reform. Eric Kaplan was named director of Milken’s Housing Finance Program. He was a managing partner at Ranieri Strategies and continues to chair the Structured Finance Industry Group’s RMBS 3.0 effort. Michael Milken and Lewis Ranieri will co-chair a new Housing Advisory Council, which will inform the work of the team led by Kaplan ... [Includes two briefs]

Rapid, aggressive refinancing of VA loans has made a comeback with some issuers using strategies to mask the practice and avoid possible penalties, including expulsion from the Ginnie Mae program, according to a top agency official. Responding to concerns raised by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, Michael Bright, acting Ginnie Mae president and chief operations officer, said a joint Ginnie Mae/VA lender-abuse task force is analyzing monthly data and developing additional policy measures to deal with the problem. Bright confirmed the resurgence of inappropriate streamline refinancing in Ginnie securitization pools in recent weeks and has promised to crack down on the questionable practice. The problem surfaced last year when Ginnie Mae noticed unusually fast prepayment speeds in its mortgage-backed securities, particularly MBS backed by VA loans. Ginnie found that certain lenders and ...

An affiliate of Blackstone is preparing to issue a rare non-agency mortgage-backed security backed by jumbo reverse mortgages, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A handful of non-agency MBS backed by jumbo reverse mortgages were issued before the financial crisis and none appear to have been issued in recent years. Blackstone’s Podium Mortgage Capital hired Clayton to perform due diligence on 280 jumbo reverse mortgages. The loans were ...

Three non-agency mortgage-backed securities issuers were preparing to issue deals around the time that Hurricane Harvey hit the Gulf Coast and Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida. Deals from the issuers include mortgages on properties in the disaster areas, prompting inspections and an emphasis on the representations and warranties included with the MBS. An affiliate of Shellpoint Partners is set to issue a $323.38 million deal on Sept. 29. According to Kroll Bond Rating Agency ...

An affiliate of Shellpoint Partners is preparing to issue another jumbo mortgage-backed security backed largely by mortgages aggregated by Bank of America. The planned Shellpoint Co-Originator Trust 2017-2 is a $323.38 million deal that received preliminary AAA ratings this week. Nearly all of the mortgages were aggregated by BofA through its jumbo whole-loan purchase program and sold to Shellpoint in bulk deals. Loans from 17 lenders will be included in the pool, led by ...

The retail channel dominates production among prominent jumbo lenders and gained some market share through two quarters this year, according to a new analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. The retail channel accounted for 77.5 percent of jumbo originations among a group of lenders that had a total of $108.00 billion in jumbo volume in the first half of 2017. The retail share was 76.6 percent over the same period in 2016. The correspondent ... [Includes one data chart]

Bank and thrift holdings of first-lien mortgages continued to increase in the second quarter, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Banks and thrifts held $1.97 trillion of first-lien mortgages at the end of June. The holdings were up by 1.9 percent from March and up 3.8 percent from a year ago. Trends in portfolio management were somewhat mixed among the top 10 holders of first-lien mortgages. Top-ranked Wells Fargo had ... [Includes one data chart]

Caliber Home Loans is on track to nearly double its originations of non-qualified mortgages this year and will supply the collateral for a forthcoming mortgage-backed security, the largest in the post-crisis era.Caliber plans to originate $1.00 billion of non-QMs this year, up from $539.0 million in 2016, according to DBRS. The nonbank lender has boosted its non-QM production across lending channels, led by wholesale. Caliber had $247.0 million in wholesale non-QM originations ...