Congress has no need to enact additional legislation to impose tough loss-mitigation standards on servicers and owners of securitized residential mortgage loans for the benefit of consumers. The CFPB’s mortgage servicing regulation thoroughly covers all related issues in this regard, according to a leading industry attorney. Larry Platt, a consumer finance lawyer at the global law firm K&L Gates, LLP, appeared late last month in a personal capacity before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee to discuss the Housing...
The complaints that consumers filed with the CFPB about their mortgages fell for the second straight quarter during the third quarter of 2013, and with a bigger drop – 16.8 percent – than was seen in 2Q13, when the fall off was at 9.2 percent, according to a new analysis of consumer complaint data by Inside the CFPB. Leading the way again were gripes about loan modifications, which fell 25.5 percent in the third quarter, versus a drop of 10.3 percent in 2Q13. Complaints related to applications and other aspects of the...{includes 1 chart]
CFPB Director Richard Cordray tried to reassure the mortgage lending community that the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule with its qualified mortgage standard will provide all the legal protections they are expecting. One issue “that some consultants and lawyers have raised is whether the law and our rule will deliver the assured and predictable legal protections even for QM loans,” Cordray said in an address recently before the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington, DC. “We believe strongly that they will...
The CFPB recently updated its Small Entity Compliance Guide to the ability‐to‐repay/qualified mortgage rule, which takes effect in January. The updated guide reflects clarifications and changes – formally known as the June 2013 ATR/QM concurrent final rule, the July 2013 final rule, and the October 2013 final rule – made to the rule since it was issued in January 2013. Among the most notable changes in the October 2013 final rule reflected in the updated guide is the exclusion of compensation that is paid by a retailer of...
Ocwen Financial posted record revenues in the third quarter of 2013 that could have been even higher if not for unexpected delays in boarding $42.0 billion in unpaid principal balance on non-agency mortgages from OneWest Bank. Officials at Ocwen wouldn’t reveal the exact cause of the delay. The loans were in non-agency mortgage-backed securities issued by IndyMac, which was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2008 and sold by the FDIC to OneWest in 2009. Ocwen officials said delays ...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac each managed to meet its risk-sharing objectives for 2013 without breaking the link to the to-be-announced market, but their regulator wants the government-sponsored enterprises to go beyond the comfort zone. The risk-sharing transactions undertaken by the GSEs this year were very positive, but they relied on the “underlying infrastructure” of Fannie and Freddie MBS, said Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, in a speech at this week’s annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association. The Structured Agency Credit Transactions and Connecticut Avenue Securities launched, respectively, by Freddie and Fannie, involved selling relatively small amounts of debt that will pay investors based on the performance of separate MBS pools that were issued and trade in the TBA market. DeMarco wants...
As leaders of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee continue their slow but steady efforts to craft a comprehensive, bipartisan mortgage finance reform bill, experts generally agreed on the necessity for some sort of government backstop for MBS but differed on the details. This week’s hearing was the first of several planned by Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID, as they work to build out their own reform legislation on top of the bill, S. 1217, filed earlier this year by Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA. Johnson said...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency declared this week that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will finish making claims on pre-conservatorship mortgage acquisitions by the end of this year. “It is time for us to wrap up all our open issues dealing with that period and move on,” said FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco during a speech at the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association. “I look forward to a speedy resolution of remaining claims in the coming months.” The two GSEs became wards of the federal government in September 2008. For years, lenders have complained...
Ginnie Mae remains a very good profit center for MBS issuers and investors, making government-backed lending appealing and beneficial to consumers, according to securitization experts. Government loans offer great value to lenders because they cover broader borrower eligibility than conventional loan products and lenders can execute more efficiently, said panelists at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual conference this week. The discussion focused on government loan programs – FHA, VA and Rural Housing Service – and on execution options for the loans and their mortgage servicing rights (MSRs). CMG Financial has found...
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