Industry groups are urging the Department of Housing and Urban Development to reconsider a supplemental proposal to require mortgagees to assign a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loan to the FHA once the loan balance reaches 98 percent of the maximum claim amount (MCA). The Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association said there are more disadvantages than benefits to the proposal. The supplemental proposal is an offshoot from a previous HUD proposed rule to codify significant changes made to the HECM program by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, the Reverse Mortgage Stabilization Act of 2013 and all other revisions in between. Both groups recommended that HUD maintain its current assignment election options rather than adopt the proposed rule. Currently, mortgagees have an option, before the ...
Lenders are optimistic about a proposed rule that would reinstate FHA spot financing in unapproved condominium projects, saying this could be the spark that would jump-start the slow condo market.The proposed rules would clarify and modify certain FHA rules to kick-start condominium lending activity, and allow some flexibility in existing approval standards. Key proposals include the reinstatement of spot approvals in unapproved condominium developments and extending the effective recertification period for condo approvals to three years, rather than the current two-year requirement. Prior to 2009, spot approval allowed a buyer to use FHA financing to purchase a unit in an unapproved condo project, but the HUD approval process was expensive and time consuming. Consequently, few lenders were able to take advantage of the spot-approval program. The Department of ...
Requiring an undercapitalized issuer to repurchase uninsured performing mortgages out of a mortgage-backed securities pool could increase risk to the federal government, warned Ginnie Mae. Responding to an adverse audit report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General, Ginnie said that while it generally accepts the IG’s recommendations, forcing an undercapitalized issuer to buy out performing loans and either hold them in portfolio or sell them at a substantial loss would put the government at greater risk. “This is something we need to be alert to in certain cases,” the agency said. According to the report, Ginnie improperly allowed more than $49 million of single-family mortgages with terminated insurance to remain in its MBS pools for more than one year without obtaining FHA coverage. The IG warned Ginnie could be on the ...
Ginnie Mae rode a surging purchase-mortgage market and heavy refinance activity to new production records during the third quarter of 2016. The agency issued a whopping $145.14 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of MBS disclosures. That figure is based on pool-level disclosures that reveal exact principal balance amounts and it includes securities backed by FHA home-equity conversion mortgages. The data in the table below are based on truncated loan-level disclosures and do not include HECM activity. New Ginnie MBS issuance in the third quarter was up 15.7 percent from the previous quarter. Ginnie MBS production set three consecutive monthly records during the third quarter, culminating in a huge $52.46 billion month in September. Purchase-mortgage activity was the key driver, but the ... [ 4 charts ]
Regulatory actions and lawsuits involving non-qualified mortgages have been essentially non-existent since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay rule took effect at the start of 2014. R. Andrew Arculin, counsel at the Venable law firm, noted that the broader economy has helped keep borrowers performing, limiting foreclosures to this point. “One of the lurking variables that I think people are concerned about is what happens if the market crashes and ...
While delinquencies on nonprime, non-qualified mortgages originated in recent years have been low, lenders note that servicing these loans requires unique efforts. How borrowers are welcomed by the servicer is seen as particularly important. Daniel Perl, CEO of Citadel Servicing, said Citadel’s borrowers receive three or four phone calls from the servicer within the first 20 days of origination. “We want people to understand that we’re here to help,” Perl said during a recent webinar ...
The share of adjustable-rate mortgages held in portfolio hit an exceptionally high level in the second quarter of 2016, according to a new analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. An estimated $53.00 billion in ARMs were originated in the second quarter of 2016 and $4.69 billion in ARMs were included in mortgage-backed securities issued during the period. The ARM securitization rate in the second quarter was 8.8 percent, down from 13.9 percent ... [Includes two data charts]
The Milken Institute suggests simply amending the charters of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae and the Federal Housing Finance Agency for a smooth transition toward a new secondary mortgage market. Those changes include turning the government-sponsored enterprises into mutuals owned and operated by their seller-servicers and making Ginnie Mae a stand-alone government corporation. Amending the charters could accomplish a wide range of objectives that have eluded legislators and policymakers since the conservatorships, the authors said. Michael Bright, director in the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets, and Ed DeMarco, senior fellow at the institute and former FHFA acting director, said...
The post-crisis market environment that fueled the mortgage loan buyback dynamic continues to improve, and with it, the business relationships between lenders, investors and the government-sponsored enterprises. However, the repurchase and indemnification phenomenon has not gone away and is unlikely to do so for the foreseeable future. That means market participants need a comprehensive strategy to limit their exposure to litigation and, when that fails, to restrict the damage that does ensue, according to some top industry attorneys. This may be particularly important for correspondent lenders. “In order to go ahead and get a good perspective for what your company’s potential risk is, how do you go...
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