A highway funding bill signed by President Obama late last week included a provision aimed at collecting more taxes related to interest payments on mortgages. The mortgage industry noted that it won concessions on the provision, delaying the implementation date and limiting the amount of data to be collected. The brunt of the new revenue also looks as though it will be collected from borrowers. H.R. 3236, the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015, included a seemingly simple provision regarding the reporting of mortgage interest on IRS Form 1098. Servicers use the form to report mortgage interest of $600 or more received during a year. The highway funding bill will require...
The Blackstone Group this week finally completed its purchase of all or parts of PMAC Lending, a California-based lender that will help the investment banking firm establish itself in the red-hot West Coast mortgage market. Although the publicly traded Blackstone has maintained a cone of silence regarding its talks with PMAC, employees of the Chino Hills lender began reporting the news themselves through various social media outlets, including Facebook. At least two other nonbank lenders are in talks with Blackstone, one in California and one in Pennsylvania. A spokeswoman for Blackstone declined...
With house prices rising over the past few years, as many as 15 million homeowners appear to be underestimating how much equity they’re actually sitting on, according to a new analysis released this week from Fannie Mae. The percent of homeowners estimated by CoreLogic to have significant home equity was much higher than the percent who actually perceived themselves as having equity in Fannie consumer surveys. The government-sponsored enterprise attributes this to a lack of access to credible home value equity tools coupled with a lack of knowledge on the homeowner’s part. This means...
The House Financial Services Committee has passed a number of mortgage-related bills designed to ease lenders’ liabilities by simplifying rules, reducing complexity and compliance costs, while a streamlined regulatory relief package gained new momentum in the Senate. Late last week, the committee reported out the following bills: H.R. 1210, (Portfolio Lending and Mortgage Access Act); H.R. 1941 (Financial Institutions Examination Fairness and Reform Act); and H.R. 3192 (Homebuyers Assistance Act). H.R. 1210 would modify...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both reported significant increases in net income during the second quarter based largely on hefty gains on their hedging activities. The two government-sponsored enterprises earned a combined $8.81 billion during the second quarter, up from just $2.41 billion for the first three months of 2015. As a result, the Treasury Department will sweep a combined $8.26 billion from Fannie and Freddie into its coffers. Rising interest rates played...
Among the findings of the eClosing pilot project run by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the need for greater coordination and cooperation between lenders, technology vendors and settlement agents, pilot participants revealed this week. Speaking at a CFPB forum to announce the results of the bureau’s recently concluded eClosing initiative, Jim Connell, chief information officer for Sierra Pacific Mortgage, said one of the biggest lessons his company learned was the importance of coordinating with the settlement agents. “We had already passed...
Two Harbors is starting to offer “expanded credit” mortgages via its conduit, including allowing for lower credit scores and higher loan-to-value ratios.
The case caught the attention of many loan officers and managers because it centered around the basic issue of what type of client information an LO can take with them when they depart one organization for another.
Residential lenders funded $445 billion in the second quarter, one of the best readings in two years, according to figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance.
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