Cash-out refinances are staging a quiet comeback as rising home-price appreciation makes such deals feasible for more homeowners. The number of cash-out refinances continued to reach new recent highs in the third quarter of 2015, rivaling numbers not seen since 2008. Black Knight Financial said close to 300,000 cash-out refinances were originated in the third quarter of last year, and about one-million over the past 12 months. During that same time period, 42 percent of all first-lien refinances had a cash-out component, the highest share since 2008. In addition, the average cash-out amount was the most it’s been since 2007 at more than $60,000. In all, these homeowners tapped...

A federal appeals court in Denver unanimously affirmed a lower court ruling that a claim of damage related to an originator/seller’s misrepresentation accrues when the loan is sold. Ruling in six cases involving plaintiffs Lehman Brothers Holdings and Aurora Commercial Corp. versus Universal American Mortgage Co. and Standard Pacific Mortgage, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected plaintiffs’ contentions that their claims were really “indemnification” claims that did not accrue until they bought the loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The overarching issue in this complicated case is...

The expected increase in interest rates on some previously modified home mortgages is a slight credit negative for RMBS performance because these loans will re-default at a higher rate, according to analysts at Moody’s Investors Service. However, higher default rates will have only a modest effect on subprime and Alt A RMBS, because only a small percentage of outstanding subprime and Alt A mortgage loans are positioned to experience future rate step-ups. In their research, the analysts found that subprime and Alt A modified loans become delinquent more frequently after a rate step-up. “Modified subprime and Alt A loans with a demonstrated performance history of four to five years become delinquent at a significantly higher rate after a step-up in interest rates than do loans of a similar type and vintage that have not stepped up,” said the analysts in a new report released this week. According to their data, in July 2015, only 2 percent of the modified re-performing subprime loans became...

Paul Hindman, a consultant at Grid Financial Services, had this to stay about the deal: “The more important question is what other mortgage-related companies are on Computershare’s shopping list….”

Fannie Mae said its new mortgage product that allows borrowers to have higher debt-to-income ratios because it includes income from non-borrowers is not risky. HomeReady was rolled out in August as a revised affordable lending product to replace the MyCommunityMortgage program focused on helping low- and moderate-income borrowers. A key component of HomeReady is that it counts income from relatives or friends who will also live in the home, which helps allow for a DTI ratio of up to 50 percent. Fannie said the reality of today’s market shows that homeowners are sharing homes and in many cases a significant amount of the income is being earned by the co-resident in these “extended-income households.”

Mortgage banking income generally declined for commercial banks and thrifts in the fourth quarter, although 2015 was generally more profitable than the previous year, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings releases. A diverse group of 25 banks reported a total of $3.046 billion in mortgage-banking income for the fourth quarter. That was down 14.8 percent from the previous three-month period, and it marked the group’s lowest ... [Includes one data chart]

Sometimes it seems there is more talk of lenders loosening their credit standards than actual data supporting such a shift, but a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities data unearthed some positive signs. In the fourth quarter of 2015, 14.4 percent of purchase mortgages securitized by the two government-sponsored enterprises had credit scores ranging from 620 to 699. Back at the beginning of 2014 ... [Includes two data charts]

The Blackstone Group, according to industry sources, has amassed a war chest of roughly $250 million to buy non-agency, nonprime mortgages, another sign that “big money” investors have returned to the sector. At this point, it’s hard to say how much origination volume in the sector will grow. It’s well known that over the past 18 months, bond insurance giant PIMCO has been buying loans that don’t meet the qualified mortgage test from Citadel Servicing and others. The reason is ...

Fannie Mae is planning to release an updated version of Desktop Underwriter in June with more specific details to come by the end of this month. But for now the GSE notified its lenders about some of the changes they can expect in DU Version 10.0. The updates in the latest version will “help lenders underwrite with confidence while expanding access to credit and sustainable homeownership for creditworthy borrowers,” said Fannie in a notice that went out on Jan. 28. The release is targeted to take place the weekend of June 25, 2016, and will include enhanced credit risk assessment using trended credit data provided by Equifax and Transunion. This tool...

There was a hefty increase in mortgage originations for subprime borrowers with credit scores under 620, most of them FHA loans, according to Equifax. From January through October of 2015, some $50.7 billion of mortgages were originated for borrowers with credit scores below 620, the credit bureau said. That was up 28 percent from the same period in 2014. Equifax attributes this to smarter lending habits. Amy Crew Cutts, Equifax’s chief economist, said while there are many ...