Is it time to sell shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

CFPB Deputy Director Steve Antonakes told attendees at the North Carolina Bankers Association’s mortgage conference last week that lenders need to start prepping for the bureau’s impending TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule, known in bureau-speak these days as the “TRID.” While the use of the TRID’s new Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure forms is not required until August 2015, “mortgage lenders should already be working on the new rule and getting ready now,” Antonakes urged. “Significant changes to business operations and technology platforms will require close collaboration with third-party service providers. “While many mortgage institutions are already deep into implementing these changes, we want to make sure that everyone understands the need to be focusing on August 2015 now,” Antonakes emphasized...

The CFPB’s integrated disclosure rule will be “treacherous” for mortgage lenders and will likely be as challenging to comply with as its massive size and complexity suggests, according to top industry experts. Speaking to attendees of an Inside Mortgage Finance webinar last week on the CFPB’s TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule – known as “TRID” – Rod Alba, senior regulatory counsel for the American Bankers Association, rattled off a number of concerns that mortgage lenders still have with the new rule, which is set to take effect Aug. 1, 2015. “The regulation is enormously voluminous in length. The sheer size of this rule, we think, makes this regulation treacherous for banks in terms of liability, in terms of enforcement, in terms of understanding ...

If lenders think they have a full plate of regulations to digest, just wait. More appetizers and main courses are on the way, courtesy of the CFPB and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. For the real estate finance industry, there is more to follow all the mortgage-related rules that took effect in January of this year, or the integrated disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, which takes effect in August of 2015. “This summer, we also issued a proposed rule to implement changes Congress made to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray, in appearance before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee ...

Industry Tries to Rustle Up Support for QM Points-and-Fees Legislation. The Mortgage Action Alliance, the grassroots advocacy group of the Mortgage Bankers Association, recently issued a “call to action” to its members to get on the telephone and call their Senators and urge them to pass legislation that would make key changes to the way points and fees are calculated under the qualified mortgage definition in the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule. S. 1577, the Mortgage Choice Act of 2013, introduced last year by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV, exempts any affiliated title charges and escrow charges for taxes and insurance from the QM cap on points and fees. Manchin’s bill is a legislative companion to H.R. 3211, the Mortgage Choice Act, which ...

One webinar panelist noted: "It reconfigures every disclosure that we had before."

The proposed ban is coming under heavy fire from different factions of the mortgage industry, including the Council of Federal Home Loan Banks, REITs and even private investors that own mortgage stocks.

Ranieri and Goodman are worried that the creation of a single GSE security could morph into a drawn out and multi-year process.

As written, the proposed rules from the FHFA could cause mortgage insurance premiums to spike.

The days of the megabanks – Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America – buying mortgage companies (of any size) are over. Never again. Right?...