FY 2017 Appropriation for USDA Single-Family Guaranteed Mortgage Program Unchanged. The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies recently approved FY 2017 funding for several housing programs. The Section 502 single-family guaranteed home loan program was appropriated $24 billion for the third straight fiscal year. On the other hand, the direct single-family loan program is funded at $1 billion, up $100 million from both the FY16 and the President’s budget for FY17. In addition, Section 515 rural rental housing received an increase in funding to $35 million. HECM Production Up in February. Home Equity Conversion Mortgage endorsements rose 20.3 percent in February due to a ...

Closing times are improving but not by leaps and bounds.

NAR voiced its dismay that some mortgage bankers are making it difficult for Realtors to obtain a copy of the closing disclosure form or CD...

Former CFPB enforcement attorney Jennifer Lee said the Circuit Court was hostile towards the CFPB’s arguments on statute of limitations, separation of powers, constitutionality of the agency and more...

First Republic, which lends to the affluent, earned $148.87 million in the first quarter of 2016, up 6.3 percent from the previous period...

Here's a product idea: hit a button on your cell phone and get foreclosed on...

The evolutionary flow of the slow-growing agency mortgage servicing market continued in the first quarter of 2016 as many of the big names peeled back and fast-growers kept growing, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. Overall, the agency MSR space expanded by a meager 0.2 percent during the first three months of 2016. Slow growth is typical of heavier refinance periods, and refi business at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae was up a combined 1.9 percent from the fourth quarter. Although purchase mortgages accounted for half of the first-quarter market, the volume of such loans securitized by the three agencies was down 12.6 percent from the previous period. Ginnie continued...[Includes two data tables]

For mortgage bankers, it was another trying week in TRID purgatory: A mid-sized nonbank exited the correspondent jumbo market because of concerns over legal liability and separately it appeared industry trade groups have given up hope that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will issue any type of formal guidance on cures. Meanwhile, the TRID scratch-and-dent market continues to hum along and the consumer watchdog agency has begun examining residential lenders for compliance with the integrated disclosure rule. “TRID exams have commenced...

When interest rates take an unexpected dive – as they did in the first quarter – it can wreak havoc on servicing assets as banks and nonbanks try to calculate a fair market value for their residential receivables. According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance and based on a compilation of values by Piper Jaffray, certain megabanks assigned some of the lowest values in years to their portfolios during the first quarter of this year. Bank of America, for instance, which usually ranks third among all servicers, assigned...[Includes one data table]

Freedom Mortgage Corp. has agreed to pay the federal government $113 million to resolve alleged violations of the federal False Claims Act and FHA requirements in connection with the origination of FHA-insured single-family mortgages. The April 15 settlement agreement between the New Jersey-based mortgage lender and the Department of Justice comes in the wake of a record $1.2 billion settlement between DOJ and Wells Fargo, which earlier admitted to false certification of defective mortgages for FHA insurance and failure to file timely reports on several thousand loans that were materially defective or badly underwritten. Like Wells Fargo, Freedom Mortgage failed...