Long-running tension between mortgage brokers and retail lenders with wholesale operations ratcheted up recently as a new group urged brokers to stop working with “whole-tail” lenders. Brokers Rallying Against Whole-tail Lending said it coined the term “whole-tail” lender as “a swipe at lenders that offer both wholesale and retail services on paper, when in reality, their primary business objective is to feed stolen prospect information directly to their affiliate companies.” “It is important that ...

Freddie Mac faced criticism last week from consumer advocates for the way the government-sponsored enterprise’s automated underwriting system handles certain functions involving merged credit reports and Equifax. A story in the New York Times this week detailed how Equifax acted as a “gatekeeper” for certain borrower credit information in Freddie’s Loan Quality Advisor. LQA is a risk and eligibility assessment tool that evaluates loan data to help lenders determine if ...

Ocwen Financial, which continues to work through an array of regulatory settlements, is shuttering its wholesale-broker division, a move that’s sparking speculation about its future as an originator. The strategy shift is curious on several fronts: the disclosure was buried at the bottom of a recent regulatory filing on state settlements; broker-wholesale production accounts for roughly half of the company’s originations; and management not too long ago expressed a desire to ...

Most of the final amendments the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau made to its mortgage servicing rules kicked in late this week, and the biggest challenge firms will have to contend with is the increased complexity. In an interview this week with Inside Mortgage Finance, Nanci Weissgold, a partner with the Alston & Bird law firm in Washington, DC, highlighted which provisions took effect this week and those coming on line next spring, and what they mean for ...

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson is getting good reviews from mortgage industry participants regarding his congressional testimony late last week on program reforms, particularly his strategy for dealing with FHA exposure under the False Claims Act. Industry observers noted an improvement in Carson’s knowledge and understanding of HUD programs since taking office in March. His nomination by President Trump was controversial because ...

The mortgage interest deduction, or MID, used to rank with apple pie and motherhood for real estate agents, mortgage lenders and homebuilders. But against the backdrop of an intense effort by Republicans to overhaul the tax code, some groups are showing more flexibility on the issue. Complicating matters is that neither the Trump administration nor key players on Capitol Hill have been explicit or consistent in what they want. The Mortgage Bankers Association wrote to the ...

Arch Capital Group is set to issue a mortgage-insurance linked note transaction. Unlike two other re-insurance deals from a similar shelf, Bellemeade Re 2017-1 received credit ratings, expanding the investor base for the transaction. A mezzanine tranche of the deal received preliminary BBB ratings from Morningstar Credit Rat-ings this week. Mortgages delivered to the government-sponsored enterprises with an unpaid principal balance of $29.30 billion are included in the transaction ...

The securities industry is backing Ginnie Mae’s stepped-up efforts to curb loan churning and rapid refinancing of VA loans and expressed its concern over how such improper lending practices might affect borrowers and MBS investors. In a letter this week to Michael Bright, Ginnie’s chief operating officer and acting president, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association lauded the agency’s investigation of aggressive refinancing of VA loans. The practice has ...

It’s been a busy year in whole loan trading for MIAC Capital Markets. The advisory firm has sold $1.2 billion of product year to date, almost double what it did all of last year. And the way things stand today, 2018 could be even better. According to Steve Harris, managing director for MIAC, the reason for the pickup in activity is simple: growth in non-agency lending, coupled with stronger demand from depositories for loans that can help them meet Community Reinvestment Act requirements ...

Default rates could increase for certain types of MBS and ABS as some borrowers experience higher debt-to-income ratios, according to Moody’s Investors Service. The rating service pointed to new results from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances conducted every three years. The survey showed a modest increase between 2013 and 2016 in the median ratio of debt payments to family incomes among debtors in the 20.0 percent to 39.9 percent income percentile ...