Almost half of lenders believe that strategic defaults will increase in 2012, a specter that continues to affect national housing policy. There are no reliable data regarding strategic defaults in the U.S., considering the secrecy inherent in the act. That has forced policymakers to make dollars-and-cents decisions based on conjecture about borrower behavior. A new FICO survey found that 46 percent of bank risk professionals expect the number of strategic defaults in 2012 to surpass those in 2011. Survey participants had a generally pessimistic view of homeowners’ regard for their mortgage...

Lenders should expect at least a short-term boost in profits from the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s recent tweaks to the Home Affordable Refinance Program, analysts say as the industry’s largest lenders have seen a big increase in new refinance applications for HARP 2.0. In its first-quarter earnings report issued last week, Chase cited the impact of HARP in part for generating $1.6 billion in mortgage production revenue, an 80 percent increase from a year earlier. Likewise, Wells reported first-quarter mortgage originations to be up $9 billion from the fourth quarter of 2011, with 15 percent of originations credited to HARP, while application volumes rose 20 percent during the same period.

Whether the motivation is trendy “hacktivism” or more traditional extortion, mortgage lenders and other financial institutions are seeing large spikes in a variety of cyberattacks these days. Prolexic Technologies, a firm that helps companies combat such assaults, said there has been an almost threefold increase in the number of attacks against its financial services clients during the first quarter of 2012 compared with the fourth quarter of 2011, along with a skyrocketing increase in malicious “packet” traffic. “During 4Q11, over 168 trillion bits of data and 14 billion packets of malicious...

New mortgage servicing rules unveiled recently by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will likely result in higher mortgage servicing costs and reduced revenue for servicers although some analysts say the rules could have a positive effect on large banks. The CFPB recently previewed some of the servicing rules it plans to issue this summer and finalize by January 2013. Specifically, the rules would require monthly mortgage statements that include mortgage terms, detailed payment information, fee disclosures and loss-mitigation information for delinquent borrowers. They also call for...

Mortgage banking operations owned by commercial banks posted a significant increase in loan sales during the fourth quarter, helping to push earnings higher. Bank mortgage banking units sold a total of $299.0 billion of single-family mortgages during the fourth quarter, up 20.2 percent from the previous three-month period. It was the industry’s second quarterly increase in sales volume after sinking to just $227.0 billion during the second quarter of last year. For the full year, mortgage sales came in 14.4 percent below the level reported during 2010, and the banking...(Includes one data chart)

The front-of-the-line priority status granted to participants of the Property Assessed Clean Energy home loan programs under the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s proposed rule could have wide-ranging and unintended consequences for the Federal Home Loan Banks, according to Bank officials. The FHFA received more than 400 comment letters late last month – including two from the FHLBanks of Indianapolis and New York – roughly split for and against implementation of the proposed “green” lending program.

Builder confidence declined nationally in April for the first time in seven months, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, though regional results were more of a mixed bag. The index moved down three notches in April to 25. It is calculated from a seasonally-adjusted index that examines builder perceptions of single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months, as well as the traffic of prospective buyers. Any number greater than 50 demonstrates that more builders have a positive, rather than negative, view of the conditions. The index...

The Mortgage Bankers Association has asked Fannie Mae to push back its June 1 implementation deadline of the GSE’s new requirements for lender “force-placed” insurance policies to allow time for the creation of a “workable timeline” for compliance. Last month, Fannie announced it would implement changes to its Lender-Placed Insurance requirements by overseeing the force-placed polices itself instead of allowing banks and other financial institutions to do so.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency should give consideration to creating a mechanism to allow small mortgage lenders to more easily appeal GSE repurchase demands, according to one U.S. senator.In a letter sent last week to FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, said several of her small-business constituents have noted a “sharp increase” in repurchase demands over the last year.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have reluctantly directed their servicers to begin making payments next month in compliance with Chicago’s vacant property ordinance “under protest” as the GSEs’ conservator continues to fight the local legislation in court. Starting May 1, Fannie servicers will be required to include a written protest along with the ordinance’s $500 registration fee, according to a letter to servicers issued earlier this month. “All payments made to the city of Chicago, including vacant property registration payments, must be made ‘under protest’ by sending a written communication to the city with the registration fee,” explained Fannie. “This written communication must note that the Federal Housing Finance Agency determined that the registration fee does not apply to Fannie Mae, and that the registration fee is therefore paid under protest.”