A federal appeals court in Washington, DC, has overturned a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit accusing the Department of Housing and Urban Development of denying protection for surviving spouses of deceased principal borrowers of reverse mortgages against ejection due to foreclosure. The case, Robert Bennett, et al. v. Shaun Donovan, revealed an apparent inconsistency between HUD regulations and the federal statute that created the FHA’s Home Equity Conversion Mortgage Program. This inconsistency was at the root of the district court’s previous decision to dismiss plaintiffs’ claim for lack of standing, which the ...

Excluding Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans, total FHA originations topped $21 billion in November, which was down 7.7 percent from October but up a substantial 44.4 percent from the same period a year ago, an Inside FHA Lending analysis of government data shows. Accounting for 99.3 percent of FHA originations, insured fixed-rate mortgages were the flavor of the month. Completed purchase money mortgages accounted for 47.1 percent of the month’s activity while refinancing comprised 52.9 percent. FHA data also showed that nearly 80 percent of FHA endorsements were for ... [1 chart]

Bank and thrift holdings of first-lien mortgages increased by 3.6 percent in the third quarter of 2012 compared with the third quarter of 2011, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. The growth, outpacing portfolio runoff and an overall decline in mortgage debt outstanding, is tied to non-agency mortgages as well as agency-eligible loans being retained by banks. Industry participants are divided on whether the first-lien holdings will ... [Includes one data chart]

The guaranty fees charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are close to hitting a tipping point where non-agency mortgage-backed security issuance will be the more economic execution for new originations, according to some non-agency participants. “If the non-agency pricing is improving and the GSE pricing is worsening, at some point you’re going to hit a tipping point,” Luke Scolastico, a vice president at Credit Suisse, said last week at a panel discussion hosted by the American Securitization Forum ...

At least two nonprime industry veterans are out in the market actively trying to raise funds to start lending operations, according to interviews conducted by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Whether they will be successful is another matter. Jon Daurio, a founder and former top executive at the now defunct Encore Capital, is trying to raise $250 million and hopes to have much of the work tied to his capital raise completed by the end of the first quarter of 2013. Daurio has been working on raising money ...

The CFPB has proposed allowing banks, credit unions and other financial services companies to test new consumer disclosures on a case-by-case basis. The bureau would have to approve of the disclosure programs ahead of time. Under the proposal, the CFPB would exempt certain qualifying individual companies for a limited time from existing federal disclosure laws so they can research and test “informative, cost-effective disclosures.” The participating companies would then share their results with the agency so it...

As the wait for the highly anticipated “qualified mortgage” final rule continues, its impact on FHA lending programs remains uncertain. Concerns have been raised over the possibility that the final QM rule the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is finalizing may establish a “safe harbor” for prime loans with a maximum debt-to-income ratio of up to 43 percent. This could have implications for FHA loans, which allow higher back-end ratios under certain circumstances, according to some lenders and industry participants. At what point the DTI ratios will ...

The FHA and VA have announced loan limit adjustments in many counties even as disparities with conventional loan limits persist in 2013, according to a new analysis by Inside FHA Lending. FHA loan limits for forward mortgages will increase in 2013 for 19 counties, 10 of which are part of the Houston metropolitan area. In those counties, the one-unit limit is going up just $1,500 to $272,550. The remaining counties are in Alaska. Congress authorized the “emergency” loan limits for high-costs markets – still $729,750 for FHA and $625,500 for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac –to run through Dec. 31, 2013. The base loan limit nationwide and in ...

Despite the renewed focus on the FHA in the wake of the recent actuarial report, analysts do not expect any meaningful action in 2013 given the important role that FHA plays in supporting the housing market. But that does not mean that the Department of Housing and Urban Development will be sitting idly by next year. It has a lot of additional measures to implement to protect and preserve the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan told Senate lawmakers recently during a hearing on the condition of the fund. The changes are both ...

Major home-equity lenders continued to show little interest in the sector during the third quarter of 2012, despite signs of strengthening home values, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance market analysis and ranking. New originations of home-equity loans – including closed-end seconds and home-equity lines of credit – remained at a sluggish $14.0 billion in the third quarter, unchanged from the previous period. The HEL market in 2012 has rebounded about 5.3 percent from the pace set during the first nine months of 2011. The uptick in new HEL originations has not been...[Includes three data charts]