The U.S. House of Representatives voted 255 to 174 recently to expand the CFPB’s qualified mortgage safe harbor to include all residential mortgages held in the originating lender’s portfolio. Similar legislative language exists in S. 1484, the Financial Regulatory Improvement Act of 2015, the regulatory relief bill pushed by Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-AL, which is going to be incorporated into appropriations legislation shortly. The big questions now are whether those QM provisions will remain attached to the next spending bill as it moves through the nation’s legislature, and if so, whether congressional Republicans can again succeed in using the appropriations process to bypass Democrat opposition. Now the bad news: The White House has ...

The new and modified data required under the CFPB’s recently released Home Mortgage Disclosure Act final rule will probably result in greater regulatory and legal scrutiny of mortgage lenders, so covered institutions should take a proactive approach to implementation, according to top legal experts. In a recent client alert, the attorneys in the mortgage banking and consumer financial services groups at the Ballard Spahr law firm noted that the new and modified data will include “much more detail about applicants, borrowers, credit, collateral, loan type, pricing, fees, charges, the originator, and the covered institution. The new and modified data will enable regulators and private parties to analyze a lender’s practices in much greater detail than is currently possible.” Analyses of ...

Monique Rollins, deputy assistant secretary for the Treasury Department’s Office of Capital Markets, said the Treasury supports industry-driven efforts.

At one point should a mortgage originator hire a full-time attorney to oversee compliance?

It may just be a matter of time before CFPB Director Richard Cordray accuses the mortgage industry of “crying wolf” again, this time over inflated warnings about the damage to the housing markets the industry said would result from the bureau’s much-ballyhooed integrated disclosure rule. The CFPB’s Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure rule kicked in Oct. 3, 2015. And even though some industry vendors were scrambling to deliver software updates into the evening the night before, it looks like the rule has had little immediate effect on the markets, according to the results of the latest HousingPulse survey sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, an affiliated publication, along with Campbell Surveys, which performed the survey. “While ...

Quicken Loans once again led the pack in FHA production, funding $3.77 billion in 3Q15, giving the nonbank a market share of 5.14 percent.

Dallas also sized the comfort level on personal loans, saying the loan amounts would probably be in the range of $10,000 to $35,000.

According to Black Knight’s home price index (HPI), the average home value is now $253,000, which is still lower than the June 2006 peak of $268,000.

The HUD IG said it has investigated a number of HECM lenders suspected of using inflated appraisals in refinance transactions.

Menendez Introduces HAWK Amendment in T-HUD Appropriations Bill. The National Association of Realtors recently sent a thank-you note to Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, for introducing an amendment to H.R. 2577, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2016, to restore HUD’s authority to offer the Homeowners Armed with Knowledge (HAWK) program. Lawmakers who were concerned about the financial condition of the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund denied funding for the HAWK program last year in a continuing spending bill, effectively stalling the program for a year. The HAWK program is a key component of the FHA’s Blueprint for Access, which was designed to open up the credit box for underserved borrowers. Specifically, program participants will benefit from reductions in FHA premiums once they complete ...