It could take years for the non-agency mortgage-backed securities market to even approach the depth and liquidity it had before the housing meltdown, according to experts participating on a panel during the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association this week in Las Vegas. The main reason non-agency MBS issuance does not amount to much is the huge bank demand for jumbo mortgages, said Tom Millon, president and CEO of Capital Markets Cooperative. Only about 77 percent of ...

Boosters of the non-agency market are trying to solve too many problems at once, according to Matthew Nichols, a managing partner at Deephaven Mortgage. He said work by various groups to set standards and address the problems confronting the non-agency market is an effort to create a world where non-agency MBS never take a first loss. “We are taking a simpler approach, accumulating nonprime, non-QM mortgages and securitizing them,” Nichols said this week at ...

Lenders have a number of underwriting options under the ability-to-repay rule when originating mortgages for self-employed borrowers, according to officials at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Self-employed borrowers account for a sizeable portion of the potential customer base for jumbo mortgages. The FDIC hosted a conference call this week to address concerns banks have raised regarding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ATR rule, and one of the most ...

California continued to dominate jumbo originations in 2013, according to an Inside Nonconforming Markets analysis of data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. The $96.74 billion in jumbos originated in California in 2013 accounted for 36.9 percent of total jumbo production during the year. The analysis defines jumbos as loans that exceed a county’s government-sponsored enterprise loan limit for 1-unit mortgages. If the county isn’t available, data cover ... [Includes one data chart]

The New York Department of Financial Services has found serious issues at Ocwen Financial, including the backdating of “potentially hundreds of thousands” of letters to borrowers, the NYDFS said in a letter to the nonbank servicer released this week. The allegations could be the most damaging yet for Ocwen, which has faced concerns from the NYDFS since February when Ocwen placed a planned $39.2 billion mortgage acquisition on indefinite hold in an effort to resolve issues raised by the agency ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week issued a final rule providing lenders with a right to cure a mistake when the points and fees on what was intended to be a qualified mortgage inadvertently surpass the allowable points-and-fees cap on QMs. Points and fees charged to a borrower for a QM generally can’t exceed 3.0 percent of the loan principal at the time the loan is made. If a lender discovers after the loan has closed that the ... [Includes three briefs]

Ginnie Mae this week provided new details to the long-anticipated plan for increased issuer net worth and liquidity and a new performance scoring method for issuer activity – changes that could adversely affect small issuers and portfolio servicers. In remarks at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention in Las Vegas, Ginnie Mae President Ted Tozer said the changes are part of a larger effort to ensure the continuing flexibility and availability of the agency’s mortgage-backed securities program to as many entities as possible. New types of issuers and counterparties have entered the agency-backed MBS market in the wake of the financial crisis, which called for adjustments and tailored approaches to the evolving housing finance market, Tozer noted. Tozer said both policy changes and staff expertise will ensure the success of ...

A top-ranking housing official soon to become acting FHA commissioner assured lenders that the agency is reviewing the pricing of its mortgage insurance, but made no promises during the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association held this week in Las Vegas. Biniam Gebre, now the deputy assistant secretary for housing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said the agency “has been reviewing our premium levels on a regular basis.” He added, “I’m sure we will come back to it over the next couple months and next year.” The pricing of FHA mortgage insurance premiums “is a very important question,” Gebre said. Many in the mortgage industry have been focused on the availability of credit, but the affordability of credit is important as well, he added. “We believe we reached a tipping point when we raised premiums in response to ...

While the FHA’s share of the primary insurance market has dropped significantly since premiums were hiked in early 2013, the VA program and the rural housing loan program run by the Department of Agriculture are going strong, according to agency officials. During a panel discussion at the Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention this week, VA and Rural Development executives said that both agencies have been quietly building mortgage market share. Jeffrey London, deputy director of the VA’s loan guaranty service, reported that purchase-mortgage VA loan originations were up 11 percent in fiscal 2014, with 40 percent of the business being first-time homebuyers. Of that group, 80 percent took no-downpayment VA loans, the biggest selling point in the program, along with its relatively low costs. In earlier remarks, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro revealed that ...

Buyers, sellers and real estate agents have until the end of 2014 to take advantage of the property-flipping waiver that the FHA had put in place in 2010 to increase the availability of affordable homes for first-time homebuyers and other purchasers. After Dec. 31, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will let the waiver lapse subjecting investors again to property-flipping prohibitions. Lenders say the waiver program worked well in underserved and hard-hit areas but HUD believes the program’s initial objectives have been attained and that prudence and vigilance are again called for to prevent abuses and potential losses. As a rule, the FHA prohibits “property flipping” in which a recently acquired property undergoes a minor makeover, is appraised with an artificially high value and is resold for a considerable profit. Most property flipping occurs within a matter of days, which prompted HUD to ...