Jim Parrott, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and owner of Falling Creek Advisors, last week outlined three steps industry participants and federal regulators could take to boost issuance of non-agency MBS. The proposal involves the establishment of a self-regulatory organization, regulatory relief for MBS that meet standards set by the SRO, and allowing non-agency MBS to be issued through the common securitization platform being developed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Parrott detailed...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are expected to launch a study of mortgage servicing in 2017 and research ways to reach underserved borrower groups, but the new “scorecard” for the government-sponsored enterprises doesn’t portend big changes in their credit-risk transfer programs or the emerging common securitization platform. The most significant new initiative in the 2017 scorecard released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency this week is a new project to assess the mortgage servicing business model. The language is somewhat vague and broad-reaching: “initiate a multiyear assessment of both the challenges facing the mortgage servicing market and potential solutions for identified issues.” The new game plan specifically mentions...
Commercial banks reduced their securitized servicing by 1.9 percent during the third quarter, though they still accounted for 52.5 percent of that market.
The growing popularity of private-label servicing and the way it’s offered to lenders are raising regulatory questions, underscoring the need for guidance and supervision, according to legal experts. With the most comprehensive offerings of private-label servicing, the borrower never knows the subservicer exists, and that’s the point of the arrangement, according to Craig Nazzaro, of counsel at the Atlanta-based law firm Baker Donelson. Nazzaro attributes...
In other instances, the home price agreed upon by the buyer and seller might fall within market trends, but the appraiser might not have access to data to verify the value.
With rates at the highest they’ve been in 27 months, mortgage lenders have to make sure they keep their costs as low as possible to be competitive. At the same time, they have to retain and attract the most productive loan officers, while still staying within the bounds of the loan originator compensation rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. During a webinar sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance this week, Paul Hindman, managing director at Grid Origination Services, said loan officer recruiting is not just about the Benjamins. “In no particular order, should they decide to explore, loan officers will evaluate and compare the following when assessing the right model match: company brand and culture ([including] mission, vision and values); compensation clarity, [and] loan products and consistent rates/pricing,” he said. Also important are...