FHA jumbo loan originations increased in the first quarter of 2013 as well as from the same period last year pending hikes in the mortgage insurance premium and the required downpayment on loans above $625,500, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of FHA data. FHA jumbo lenders produced an estimated $5.44 billion in loans over $417,000 during the first three months of the year, up 6.6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012 and 14.0 percent higher compared to the volume from a year ago. Consumers continued to use the FHA jumbo product despite FHA’s decision to raise the annual mortgage insurance premiums on ... [2 charts]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General has announced a second round of mortgage note sales for this year under the expanded Distressed Asset Stabilization Program. Separate sales of approximately 20,000 severely delinquent loans have been scheduled for June 26 and July 10 as part of HUD’s effort to reduce its bulging inventory of foreclosed residential properties and to target relief to areas hit the hardest by foreclosures. HUD estimates the total unpaid balance of the loans in this sale at ...

Regulation by Mortgagee Letter. The Department of Housing and Urban Development this week urged House lawmakers to grant it statutory authority to make temporary changes to the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program through mortgagee letters while working to formalize the change through rulemaking. In a hearing before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance this week, Charles Coulter, HUD deputy assistant secretary for single-family housing, sought specific authority to limit the amount that may be drawn from ...

All three pistons in the mortgage origination engine slowed down during the first quarter of 2013, but retail production came closest to keeping the pace in a declining market, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. Lenders produced an estimated $310.0 billion in originations through retail offices, bank branches, call centers and online activities during the first three months of 2013. That was down 0.9 percent from the previous quarter, but because overall production slipped 4.8 percent, the retail share of the market surged to a record 62.0 percent. The wholesale channel – both correspondent and broker – accounted...[Includes four data charts]

Although loan broker employment continues to rise, the market share for table funding declined in the first quarter, according to exclusive survey figures from Inside Mortgage Finance.

Essent, the number-five player in mortgage insurance, has received ratings from both S&P and Moody's.

One investor paid $100,000 per unit for a special class of Fannie Mae preferred.

In exploring how to attract more private capital into the housing finance system, policymakers should permit the jumbo mortgage market to stand on its own absent a government guaranty and make any future government backing explicit, experts told members of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment this week. Given that loans over the old $417,000 conforming limit account for a quarter of the dollar volume of mortgages per year, a slow and measured hand off of this segment to private capital is a low-maintenance way to reduce the government’s mortgage footprint, according to Mark Willis, resident research fellow at the New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. Inside Mortgage Finance estimates that loans exceeding $417,000 accounted for 16.8 percent of originations in 2012. “Opening up the market above $417,000 should provide...

Efforts by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to use the False Claims Act to recoup $1 billion in losses suffered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have suffered a big setback. Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff dismissed claims for treble damages and penalties the federal government brought under the FCA against Bank of America as successor to Countrywide Financial for allegedly selling defective loans to the two government-sponsored enterprises while representing that the mortgages complied with their requirements. The government asserted...

Guaranty fees need to be raised by roughly 10 basis points in order for the pricing between agency and non-agency deals to be comparable, according to a new report.