FHA loan volume continued to decline in the first half of 2014 despite continuing improvement in the quality of new originations and a high demand for purchase mortgage loans, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of agency data. Overall, FHA production for the first six months of the year, excluding reverse mortgages, totaled $61.1 billion. While originations were up 16.0 percent in the second quarter, it was down a hefty 51.8 percent on a year-over-year basis. Purchase loans accounted for $47.3 billion of new FHA-insured loans made over the six-month period while an estimated $58.4 billion of loans had fixed interest rates. For FY 2014, volume was down 19.0 percent. “In FY 2013, approximately 702,000 FHA-insured loans were originated and this year we’re running at 560,000 loans, which is roughly 20 percent of last fiscal year’s total,” said an FHA analyst. “In the first quarter, approximately ... [1 chart]
The FHA has issued two final rules enhancing consumer protections – one prohibiting lenders from charging additional interest on FHA-insured mortgages that are paid in full and another ensuring that borrowers of adjustable-rate mortgages receive earlier notice of rate changes. Both rules were published in the Aug. 26 Federal Register. The first rule eliminates the practice of charging the borrower a full-month’s interest even if the mortgage is prepaid in full before the end of the month. It adopted the proposed rule, which was issued for comment on March 13, 2014, without change. Effective Jan. 21, 2015, charging borrowers post-settlement interest, which is broadly defined by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a “prepayment penalty,” will be prohibited for all FHA single-family mortgage products and programs. In the rule’s preamble, HUD said it expects lenders to ...
Chuck Klein, managing partner of Mortgage Banking Solutions, is engaged in roughly 12 transactions. “I think at least six of those will close,” he said.
Bank of America last week agreed to a record settlement with the Department of Justice and others, largely involving non-agency mortgage-backed securities issued from 2003 through 2008. Officials at the DOJ said the settlement focused on disclosures provided by BofA and its affiliates, including Countrywide Financial, First Franklin and Merrill Lynch, to investors in the bonds. “It’s kind of like going to your neighborhood grocery store to buy milk advertised as fresh, only to discover that ...
Lowering the government-sponsored enterprises’ loan limits is one of the main goals for firms involved in the non-agency market but the effort lacks broad support in the mortgage industry, let alone in Congress. Among those submitting comments to the Treasury Department this month regarding how to increase non-agency activity, the American Bankers Association was one of the biggest supporters of decreased loan limits for the GSEs. The conforming loan limit is at $417,000 and ...
A number of real estate investment trusts are increasing their presence in the jumbo mortgage-backed security market with conduit programs as well as purchases of subordinate tranches from new MBS. Two Harbors Investment said its jumbo conduit had a pipeline with an unpaid principal balance of $650 million at the end of the second quarter of 2014, more than four times the REIT’s pipeline at March 31. Two Harbors recently issued a $267.67 million jumbo MBS, the first from the REIT this year ...
Originations of jumbo mortgages increased significantly in the second quarter of 2014 compared with the previous quarter, according to a new ranking and analysis by affiliated publication Inside Mortgage Finance. An estimated $59.0 billion in non-agency jumbos were originated in the second quarter, up 34.1 percent from the previous quarter and reversing two consecutive quarters of declining originations for the jumbo sector. Halfway through the year, jumbo production ... [Includes one data chart]
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