DBRS suggests it's likely that most of the U.S. population won't be able to qualify for a mortgage any time soon...

Mortgage-related complaints to the CFPB as of the first quarter of 2014 were down significantly compared with the previous year, though they increased compared with the fourth quarter of 2013.

The FHFA and Chicago settled a legal battle that started in November 2011 regarding maintenance and fees for vacant properties.

Citi continued the trend of big banks reporting sharp declines in their mortgage originations, driven by a lack of refinance business.

In a statement submitted for the record to the House Financial Services Committee last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association said it remains concerned that the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule could unduly tighten mortgage credit for a significant number of creditworthy families who seek to buy or refinance a home. To improve the rule, the MBA rattled off a handful of suggestions, the first of which was to establish cure procedures. “The CFPB should adopt rules allowing lenders to cure calculation errors and other processing mistakes made while attempting to meet the qualified mortgage requirements,” the trade group said. “Without such procedures, lenders will be forced to avoid transactions at the boundaries of the points-and-fees cap, debt-to-income limits and the annual percentage...

More than 80 percent of bankers expect mortgage credit is going to be constricted because of the CFPB’s new mortgage rules, which took effect in January, according to the results of the latest Real Estate Lending Survey from the American Bankers Association. More specifically, in discussing the impact of the ability-to-repay/qualified mortgage rules on credit availability in the market generally, 41 percent said there will be a measurable reduction in credit availability across all mortgage lending segments. Forty percent said there will be a measurable reduction in credit availability in the non-QM lending segments only, and 20 percent said there will be no measurable impact on mortgage lending levels, regardless of QM or non-QM classification. When asked to characterize the...

The issue of the recess appointment of Richard Cordray as director of the CFPB may finally have been put to rest now, after the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the last remnants of a case brought by the watchdog group, Judicial Watch, under the Freedom of Information Act. Back in September, the court ruled that the CFPB had properly discharged its FOIA obligations in the case for all the documents at issue except one, an e-mail from a White House staffer to a CFPB employee. At the time, “the court agreed with the CFPB’s position that it was entitled to rely on the deliberative process privilege, the attorney client/attorney work product privilege, or the presidential communications...

The National Association of Realtors also urged the FHA to use its “granted discretion” to adjust loan limits for areas that have experienced significant declines.

Fitch said OneWest found a new buyer for 12,000 mortgages in 39 non-agency MBS that didn’t receive consents as part of the planned transfer to Ocwen.

During a recent webinar on MSR strategies, industry attorney Larry Platt of K&L Gates said he knows of “certain sales that have been held up for quite some time.” He noted: “You really can’t get a handle on what the cause of it is.”