Democrats in Congress and consumer advocates remain concerned about tight underwriting standards for mortgages, particularly due to overlays established by lenders. However, at a hearing this week by a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, there was a lack of consensus on what causes underwriting overlays. “Instead of matching the creditworthy borrower at the lower end of the distribution with affordable loans, these borrowers are being cut out of the market entirely,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, chairman of the Banking Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, suggested...

But there's one little wrinkle: the GSEs cannot pass the cost of funding the HTF onto lenders…

The FHA temporary waiver was issued in November of last year and now has been extended to Aug. 31, 2016.

Compared to two years ago, staffing levels at the CFPB have increased a whopping 55 percent. Of course, Congress has no say over the agency’s budget.

United Wholesale Mortgage is also one of the largest originators of residential loans with lender-paid mortgage insurance.

Sen, Menedez added: “These [programs] were not the drivers of the financial crisis. We’re going to hear the opposite of that in the next session of Congress.”

The new plea from the CHLA comes at a time when depositories are losing origination market share to fast growing nonbanks like Freedom Mortgage, United Wholesale Mortgage and others.

But is DocMagic president and CEO Dominic Iannitti done buying? Stay tuned…

CalCap is about to enter the Phoenix market and is considering other western states as well.

Ocwen Financial, whose stock has been clobbered this year, recently increased the base salary of its chief financial by $50,000...