Expect Senate Democrats and the White House to continue their push to see Rep. Mel Watt, D-NC, confirmed as the new director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency despite falling four votes short in a key procedural vote in the Senate last week. On Oct. 31, Senators voted 56 to 42 to limit floor debate on Watt’s nomination, well below the 60-member supermajority required to invoke cloture and shutter any potential filibuster under current Senate rules. Had Democrats been able to clear the 60-vote threshold and invoke cloture, it’s all but certain that Watt would have become the new FHFA director: the final vote on his nomination would then need only a simple majority of 51 votes. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, has expressed...
A few weeks back, many servicing brokers were predicting a land rush to close deals by year-end, but there’s a new school of thought that predicts sellers might wait until early 2014 to unload some of their deals. “While we don’t expect the [mortgage servicing rights] deal flow to turn off completely for 2013 just yet, we have noticed quite a slowdown in the marketplace as compared to the summer and early fall,” said George Christo, executive vice president of The Prestwick Group. “Many of our conversations with buyers and sellers have pivoted to setting the table for the first quarter of 2014 settlements.” Moreover, the frothy prices being offered for MSRs are...
Nationstar and PennyMac led the ongoing charge of non-banks into the mortgage servicing business during the third quarter of 2013, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking. The two companies reported increases in their servicing portfolios of 17.9 percent and 19.1 percent, respectively, from the end of the second quarter. The other stand-out big gain was a 14.2 percent increase in servicing reported by EverBank. Non-bank servicers accounted...[Includes one data chart]
While the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s proposed definition of a “qualified mortgage” is superior to the treatment FHA-insured mortgage loans would receive under the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s QM rule, it would add significant regulatory burden and costs and increase litigation risks, warned mortgage lenders. HUD’s proposed distinction between safe harbor and rebuttable presumption loans is unnecessary for FHA loans because they already meet QM requirements, according to industry trade groups. Rebuttable presumption would only impose more costs and reduce credit availability for borrowers who need FHA credit the most and likely create more confusion, lenders said. The inclusion of the FHA annual mortgage insurance premium (MIP) in the annual percentage calculation under the CFPB rule would cause...
“At the end of the day, we’re still dealing with a one-sided contract with a significant termination option,” said Jonathan Jaffe, an attorney who works on GSE buyback issues.
The REIT is just starting to purchase MSRs. At the end of September it had $15.7 million of mortgage servicing rights on its balance sheet, but that figure should rapidly change in the quarters ahead.
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