According to one servicing advisor, large banks – including Wells Fargo – have been quietly selling excess servicing rights through private securitizations.

Through September $2.1 billion in originations by First Republic were included in jumbo MBS this year. The loans accounted for 17 percent of all non-agency jumbos securitized, according to exclusive figures compiled by Inside Nonconforming Markets.

A rebound in asset securitizations backed by car loans, dealer financing and credit cards fueled a solid 9.9 percent increase in non-mortgage ABS issuance during the third quarter of 2013, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. A total of $42.00 billion of non-mortgage ABS were issued during the third quarter, reversing a sharp decline in new issuance during the previous three-month period. It lifted total production for the first nine months of 2013 to $127.34 billion, a 14.7 percent increase over the same period last year. The biggest component in the market has been...[Includes two data charts]

The MGIC Investment Corp. reported its second straight profitable quarter in 2013 and another increase in new insurance written. While the numbers may not yet indicate a trend, it certainly appears that the Milwaukee-based mortgage insurer is slowly but consistently showing improvement in its performance since posting a net loss of $246.9 million for the same quarter a year ago. MGIC reported net income of $12.1 million in the third quarter and $12.4 million in the second quarter, compared with a net loss of ...

The FHA and the Department of Veterans Affairs this week appealed to lenders to be more sensitive to federal employees who might be struggling with their mortgage payments due to the government shutdown. FHA Commissioner Carol Galante said all approved lenders should make every effort to reach out and assist affected borrowers, which include those who have been furloughed, laid off or suffered a decline in income due to the shutdown. FHA would assist furloughed government workers by offering informal forbearance plans and other loss mitigation options to help affected borrowers avoid foreclosure. Lenders are also encouraged to ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inadequate response and poor implementation of corrective actions recommended by its own inspector general did little to stop claim files from squeezing through without reviews. HUD’s Office of the Inspector General urged Charles Coulter, deputy assistant secretary for single-family housing, to go back and implement the IG’s recommendations properly. The process HUD said it had implemented had failed to select all FHA loans that met review criteria, resulting in more than ...

FHA loan originations declined by 10.5 percent in August from July, following a downward trend that seems to suggest that private mortgage insurance companies are gaining the upper hand against their biggest government-backed competitor. Volume dropped to $16.8 billion in August from $18.8 billion in July, and from $22.1 billion a year ago, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of FHA data. Purchase-mortgage originations comprised 68.7 percent of FHA business for the month as rising interest rates slowed refinancing activity. Despite the increase in purchase lending, FHA lenders noted it was ... [1 chart]

Two surviving spouses of deceased reverse mortgage borrowers won their case against the Department of Housing and Urban Development after a U.S. court found HUD in violation of federal law for failing to protect the spouses from foreclosure. The court’s decision marks a turning point for surviving spouses, such as Robert Bennett of Annapolis, MD, and Leila Joseph of Brooklyn, NY, and ensures that they will be protected against eviction and foreclosure, despite the loss of their husband or wife, said Jean Constantine-Davis, a senior attorney with the AARP Foundation Litigation. In March 2011, the AARP and the law firm of Mehri & Skalet of Washington, DC, filed ...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a putative class action alleging that a lender improperly required FHA borrowers to buy and maintain higher flood insurance coverage than that indicated in their mortgage contracts. According to an analysis by the Washington law firm BuckleySandler, the ruling from an equally divided en banc court allows mortgage lenders to require borrowers to maintain flood insurance equal to the replacement value of their homes. In Kolbe v. BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP, No. 11-2030, 2013 WL 5394192 (1st Cir. Sept. 27, 2013), plaintiff Stanley Kolbe contends ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s proposed “qualified mortgage” rule attaches certain conditions to QM treatment that may complicate matters for participating lenders, said attorneys with K&L Gates in Washington, DC. On Sept. 30, the Department of Housing and Urban Development published its own proposed QM rule for FHA loans. The CFPB rule takes effect on Jan. 14, 2014, and will apply to FHA loans until HUD issues a final rule. Under the CFPB rule, many FHA loans would not qualify for the rule’s safe harbor because the higher mortgage insurance premiums would make them “higher priced mortgage loans.” Thus, in order to ...