Investors searching for residential servicing rights can take a run at new offerings from Interactive Mortgage Advisors and MIAC, among others.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appears to have come out in support of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But will other elected officials follow suit?

House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-CA, sent a letter to CFPB Director Richard Cordray recently, expressing concerns that senior employees have left the bureau in order to profit from the very rules they helped create. “Simply put, it appears that former CFPB employees are now offering financial products in a market sector created by the very rules they were in a position to influence while working in senior leadership positions...

Up until recently, if a mortgage joint venture of Wells Fargo asked its partner if the megabank was still feeling the love for joint ventures, the answer would’ve been yes. At least that’s the word from one JV executive who received the news recently that Wells was tossing all of its origination JVs overboard. Earlier in the year, the bank told its two largest JVs – HomeServices Lending and Prosperity Mortgage – that everything was hunky dory. Well, apparently not. Of course, both Home and Prosperity needn’t worry...

With the prospect of the qualified mortgage right around the bend for the mortgage lending industry, it could be easy for lenders to be so focused on getting their points-and-fees calculation to a point of near-perfection. But don't lose sight of your third-party vendors. Michael Chan, vice president at ComplianceEase in Burlingame, CA, gave some attendees at a recent Inside Mortgage Finance webinar on the QM a list of features and characteristics that should be part of a lender's every due diligence effort to vet and review a...

Even though the CFPB has yet to release its final rule and related forms under its consolidated consumer disclosure project, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently announced they are working on a standardized dataset to support the forms when the rule is finalized by the bureau, which is expected in October. The government-sponsored enterprises’ dataset is called the Uniform Closing Dataset, and is a component of Fannie’s and Freddie’s Uniform Mortgage Data Program, an ongoing effort to enhance the accuracy and quality of loan data...

The Federal Trade Commission plans to ask the Office of Management and Budget to extend through Nov. 30, 2016, the current Paperwork Reduction Act clearance for the FTC’s shared enforcement with the CFPB of the information collection requirements in Regulation N (Mortgage Acts and Practices – Advertising). That clearance expires Nov. 30, 2013. The FTC is inviting public comments on a handful of related issues, the first of which is whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the...

Lenders would be well served to periodically re-assess the fair lending impact of their policies especially in regard to the qualified mortgage rule.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. would be prohibited from repudiating covered bonds when resolving a failed banking institution under the provisions of a controversial housing reform bill put together by the Republican leadership of the House Financial Services Committee and passed out of committee last week. That prohibition would go a long way toward resolving the long-standing hurdles that have thwarted development of a covered bond market in the United States. But it also amps up the level of controversy associated with H.R. 2767, the Protecting American Taxpayers and Homeowners Act of 2013, introduced by Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, and Rep. Scott Garrett, R-NJ, the architect of a covered bonds bill introduced in the 112th Congress. The relevant provisions in the PATH Act are...

Fannie Mae said that, assuming publication of the CFPB final rule comes in the fall, more information will be available later in 2013 on implementation plans.