Bank of America agreed this week to pay $500 million to settle lawsuits from investors in non-agency mortgage-backed securities issued by Countrywide Financial in 2005 through 2007. If it receives judicial approval, the settlement on about $15.0 billion in non-agency MBS will be the largest-ever non-agency MBS class-action recovery. “After five years of hard-fought litigation, this record-breaking recovery is a tremendous result for MBS investors misled by Countrywide and ...

Non-agency jumbo mortgage-backed securities issued by Redwood Trust in 2010 and 2011 have been subject to scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent months. The SEC looked into Regulation AB compliance issues on the deals, largely seeking increased disclosures. The SEC’s inquiries generally related to deal participants other than Redwood. And in some cases, the SEC sought disclosures related to actions beyond the firms’ participation in non-agency MBS issuance ...

California Capital Real Estate Advisers of Pasadena, CA, could quadruple its hard-money production volume this year, according to Mark Mozilo, a principal in the firm. “The rehab business is going crazy here,” Mozilo said. He estimated that 80 percent of CALCAP’s business is in the rehabilitation category. “There’s a lot of fix-it-up and flip it activity,” he said. Although the “quadruple” estimate sounds impressive, the firm’s overall production volume is tiny compared to conventional lenders ...

“The policy mix is very much weighted on the side of not lending, or at least not underwriting anything but a prime loan,” according to Chris Whalen, an executive vice president and managing director at Carrington Investment Services. Whalen and others spoke last week at a panel hosted by the American Enterprise Institute. The industry analysts said actions by federal regulators are limiting issuance of non-agency mortgage-backed securities. Tom Zimmerman, a managing director at UBS, said ...

Performance on home-equity loans is improving, with industry participants optimistic about future performance. Bank and thrift holdings of HELs continue to decline, based on a new ranking and analysis from the Inside Mortgage Finance Bank Mortgage Database. Delinquencies on HELs fell to 4.03 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 from 4.20 percent the previous quarter, according to the American Bankers Association. “We saw the first inkling of improvement for that sector,” said ... [Includes one data chart]

The five servicers participating in the $25 billion national servicing settlement will face increased scrutiny due to complaints regarding their compliance with the settlement. In addition to requiring a certain amount of loss mitigation actions on non-agency loans, the settlement set standards to be followed by the servicers. Joseph Smith, the settlement’s monitor, said he is establishing additional metrics for the settlement to address complaints about actions by Ally Financial, Bank of America ...

The Obama administration’s 2014 budget proposal calls for a Home Affordable Refinance Program for non-agency borrowers, although prospects for getting legislation through Congress remain slim. The proposed budget included a small section entitled “finish the task on universal refinancing for responsible homeowners.” The section noted that the Obama administration worked with the government-sponsored enterprises in 2012 to double the number of HARP refinances for GSE borrowers with negative equity ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week proposed changes to a final rule issued in January to remove an inadvertent gap in protections for borrowers receiving higher-priced mortgages and tweak the definitions of “rural” and “underserved” areas. The proposed changes relate to a final rule on escrow requirements for higher-priced mortgage loans. Lenders are currently required to establish escrow accounts for certain HPMLs for a minimum of one year. The CFPB’s final rule generally ...

A former managing director and global head of structured credit in the investment banking division of Credit Suisse Group pled guilty last week to a scheme to hide losses on non-agency mortgage-backed securities. Kareem Serageldin faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of the greater of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense. The Department of Justice had charged Serageldin with fraudulently inflating the prices of non-agency MBS and ... [Includes four briefs]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development this week issued guidance that spells out procedures for demanding indemnification from lenders participating in the agency’s Lenders Insurance (LI) program for loans deemed ineligible for FHA insurance. The guidance (Mortgagee Letter 2013-10) implements regulation that HUD finalized in January 2012. Indemnification for defective LI loans became even more important for the FHA after an independent actuarial audit in November revealed a negative capital reserve ratio and that a taxpayer bailout seemed imminent. Compliance experts warned that, with the policy changes, the more than ...