FHA Total Delinquencies, Serious Delinquencies Show Remarkable Improvement Since Peak. The FHA total delinquency rate in 2015 was 13 percent, down 37 percent from 2012 when the rate peaked at 16.7 percent, according to the latest data from FHA Neighborhood Watch. Serious delinquencies (loans that are 90 days or more past due) have improved 19 percent in 2015, with rates down to 6.74 percent from 9.92 percent in 2012. As of February 2016, the total delinquency rate and serious delinquency rate improved further to 11.1 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively. VA Issues POC Guidance, Seeks Comments on Proposed Data Collections. The Department of Veterans Affairs has issued new guidance revising the point-of-contact for inquiries regarding paid-in-full notifications of loans guaranteed for repurchase under VA’s Regulation 4600 Loans. The ...

The mortgage industry is keeping the heat on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, urging the powerful consumer regulator to issue official guidance on TRID disclosure errors and assignee liability as problems continue to plague the non-agency secondary market. According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance over the past several weeks, problems persist in the secondary because certain jumbo investors won’t buy loans even if there’s just one, minor TRID error...

Housing policy experts at a Washington, DC, forum this week were generally supportive of renewed efforts to address the quagmire in which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been stuck for over eight years, but there was less evidence of movement to expand the credit box. A group of high-profile policy experts led by Urban Institute Senior Fellow Jim Parrott recently tried to re-ignite the mortgage reform effort by calling for the merger of the two government-sponsored enterprises and providing an explicit government guarantee for the new entity’s mortgage-backed securities with private capital taking the first loss. Barry Zigas, director of housing policy at the Consumer Federation of American and one of the co-authors of the paper, said...

Of considerable concern is the shortage of appraisers in specific markets.

There was a modest 1.8 percent increase in refinance business, and refi loans accounted for over half (52.1 percent) of GSE business in the first quarter – the first time refi activity exceeded purchase lending since early last year.

Dallas, who has been a mortgage banker since the 1980s, added that earlier in the year Skyline “battened down the hatches…”

At yearend, RoundPoint had $14.9 billion in subservicing contracts. It now has almost $22 billion.

White House advisor Michael Stegman: It's not easy building a government corporation...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw a slight decline in their single-family mortgage business during the first three months of 2016 – in fact, it was the slowest quarter in nearly two years – according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. The two government-sponsored enterprises issued $172.97 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the first quarter of this year, a 3.4 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2015. It was the slowest three-month volume since the second quarter of 2014, and the fourth-lowest output since the GSEs were put in conservatorship back in 2008. The slowdown stemmed...[Includes three data tables]

Although interest rates have been trending downward for much of the year, it hasn’t stopped mortgage firms from selling one of their most prized assets: mortgage servicing rights. According to a new tally from Inside Mortgage Finance, almost $27 billion in MSR auctions have been announced since March 1, with some bulk deals sized as high as $6.2 billion dollars. At least 16 offerings have been announced...