Lenders are increasingly interested in outsourcing portions of the mortgage origination process, according to a new survey by the Stratmor Group. Industry analysts note that while outsourcing can help reduce costs, there are also risks, particularly for lenders considering outsourcing the entire origination process. Stratmor, a consulting firm that focuses on mortgage profitability, found that the majority of lenders are more interested in outsourcing loan production ...
Acquiescing to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac repurchase and make-whole demands, the big bank aggregators were more concerned about preserving their business relationship with the government-sponsored enterprises than questioning GSEs’ claims, according to compliance experts. “Indeed, it is often plainly apparent the aggregators have done nothing at all to investigate or research, much less defend against, the demands made on them by ...
If you are advertising or marketing mortgage products in Spanish, compliance experts suggest you should provide all requisite disclosures and servicing in Spanish.
A California superior court last week ruled that Gov. Jerry Brown, D, illegally diverted more than $331 million from a landmark mortgage settlement fund to resolve a state budget deficit. The funds represented California’s share in the historic 2012 national mortgage settlement between federal enforcement agencies and 49 state attorneys general and the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers – Wells Fargo Bank, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally Financial. The banks paid...
Federal financial institution regulators have approved a long-anticipated final rule that revises mandatory flood-insurance and escrow requirements as well as force-placed provisions. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. board of directors adopted the final rule unanimously. It combines two proposed rules issued in 2013 and 2014 that would implement certain provisions in the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 and subsequent changes made by the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014 (HFIAA). Biggert-Waters exempts...
The only thing that kept the qualified-mortgage rule from devastating mortgage production was the temporary loophole that allows Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the government-insurance programs to treat loans with debt-to-income ratios above 43 percent as QMs, an industry official said. “Many have referred to QM as the Y2K moment for mortgages: nothing happened. We all thought this thing was going to implode. And yet there wasn’t too much of a glitch,” said Rod Alba, senior regulatory counsel at the American Bankers Association, during the ABA’s annual regulatory compliance conference in Washington, DC, this week. “At the macro level, that’s...
Lenders are accounting for an increasing share of home purchase financing as investors decrease their largely cash buying. Purchases by first-time homebuyers are rising, helped by FHA financing. “First-time homebuyers rarely buy homes with cash and with their increasing participation in the housing market, we expectedly see the proportion of cash-financed transactions falling,” said Tom Popik, research director of Campbell Surveys. The non-cash share of financing for home purchases increased...
The outstanding supply of home mortgage debt – even what had been the fastest-growing sector of the market – ebbed in the first quarter of 2015. The Federal Reserve late last week reported the supply of home mortgage debt outstanding fell to $9.855 trillion as of the end of March. That was down 0.3 percent from December 2014 and reversed a modest expansion of the servicing market over the second half of last year. While banks, thrifts and credit unions managed...[Includes two data tables]
Although the negative-equity rate declined in the first quarter, more than half of underwater homeowners are far from recovering. A recent report shows more than 4 million homeowners had mortgages that were at least 20 percent more than their home’s value. With little to no chance of homes appreciating by 20 percent anytime soon, those owners would struggle to break even on a sale. This is...
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