MetLife, Inc. has announced that it is leaving the reverse mortgage business as part of a broader business plan to exit the mortgage market and focus strategically on global insurance and employee benefits. Nationstar Mortgage will purchase MetLife’s reverse mortgage servicing portfolio. MetLife Bank will no longer accept new reverse mortgage loan applications and registrations. MetLife’s entire retail banking business, including mortgages, accounted for less than 2.0 percent of the company’s 2011 operating earnings. Last year, the company decided to ...

The retooled Home Affordable Refinance Program may still be ramping up to full throttle, but frontline lenders say that HARP 2.0 is already proving to be a boon for their refi business with the promise of more to come, according to participants of an exclusive Inside Mortgage Finance webinar. Since January, one month after the revised program took effect, lenders have seen intense interest and a more significant uptick in new refinance applications. “HARP 2.0 has been a great opportunity for SunTrust Mortgage,” explained Tim McKeever, SunTrust’s strategic production manager. He noted that the bank this year has...

With the second-generation refinance program for underwater Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac borrowers gaining momentum in the market, Senate Democrats are drawing up new legislation designed to knock down lender reluctance about the Home Affordable Refinance Program. Legislation being drafted by Sens. Robert Menendez (NJ) and Barbara Boxer (CA) would force the government-sponsored enterprises to waive representations and warranties on new HARP loans regardless of whether the refi lender serviced the previous mortgage. Lingering concerns about reps and warranties exposure have caused many top lenders to...

Credit unions continue to nibble at the edges of a mortgage business dominated by large banks and finely tuned mortgage banking operations, but credit unions’ share of the market climbed to a record 7.36 percent in 2011, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. While most of the industry has fled to the highest ground in underwriting standards, credit unions have been more flexible lenders willing to hold mortgages on their balance sheets and originate loans that don’t conform to the secondary market. “Credit unions sell about 45 percent of...(Includes two data charts)

The troubled housing market saw some definite signs of improvement in the first quarter of 2012, a development that many mortgage lenders hope means that purchase-mortgage lending is finally ready to grow in 2012 following five years of declining volume. But tough mortgage underwriting requirements and even tougher lender overlays of additional standards are casting a dark shadow over the outlook for any significant surge in purchase-mortgage business this year. New numbers from the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey show that the share of home purchases that were...

An ad hoc coalition of trade associations, housing and consumer advocates, and community groups urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last week to craft a “qualified mortgage” rule that encompasses a wide range of mortgage products and underwriting practices to protect credit availability. The varied group, which included the Mortgage Bankers Association, the American Securitization Forum, Consumer Mortgage Coalition and American Bankers Association, acknowledged that its members hold different views about whether the QM should be designed as a safe harbor or a rebuttable presumption...

Even as it awaits the outcome of a government fair-lending investigation that it helped initiate, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition says the majority of lenders under review have reacted favorably but the widespread use of “credit overlays” remains a problem in the industry. In December 2010, the NCRC filed complaints with the Department of Housing and Urban Development after its investigation found that 22 lenders set minimum borrower credit scores as high as 640 for FHA loans, even though FHA guarantees loans to borrowers with scores as low as 580. The NCRC claims the credit...

Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry urged elected officials, businesses and grassroots leaders to encourage borrowers to ask for an independent review of their foreclosure files to determine whether they have been damaged financially by improper servicing practices. In remarks to the Greenlining Institute in Los Angeles last week, Curry called upon conference participants to spread the word to borrowers about the independent foreclosure review, a stipulation in the consent orders that 14 major mortgage servicers agreed to a year ago in a deal with federal banking regulators to settle allegations of deficient...

The non-agency MBS market had a faint pulse during the first quarter of 2012, but new issuance continues to struggle for footing against adverse forces. A total of $5.04 billion of non-agency MBS were issued during the first three months of this year, nearly triple the volume during the fourth quarter of 2011. The brightest spot was the prime jumbo sector, where first-quarter MBS issuance ($1.47 billion) exceeded the total produced in all of 2010 and 2011 combined. Redwood’s two jumbo MBS backed by newly originated mortgages suggest that the company may be finding a...(Includes three data charts)

The Obama administration’s Residential MBS Working Group, set up in January to probe misconduct that drove the financial crisis, is apparently trying to tap the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 to make such cases easier to bring. Although it hasn’t been used that much, the appeal of pursuing criminal investigations under FIRREA is apparently the relatively lower burden of proof than bringing more traditional criminal charges. Also, FIRREA has a longer statute of limitations than do other finance-related laws, along with the potential for large fines...