When the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was working on the definition for qualified mortgages, some warned the regulator that only QMs would be available after the standards took effect. However, with the QM era set to begin Friday, a number of lenders will offer non-QMs even though such originations will come with increased liability. While interest-only mortgages don’t meet QM criteria, the loans will continue to be offered by lenders large and small. The government-sponsored enterprises won’t buy them, so the originations will be left to portfolio lenders and those with non-agency sales outlets. “We will continue making...

With a handful of pivotal mortgage lending and servicing rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau going live at the end of this week, industry representatives have been readying themselves to cross the threshold while not quite certain about how complete compliance is going to be or how much access to mortgage credit might be crimped. Of the four rules that kick in on Jan. 10 – those dealing with ability-to-repay/qualified mortgages, loan originator compensation, mortgage servicing, and high-cost mortgages – clearly the ATR rule continues to consume most of the oxygen in the room. One of the biggest points of uncertainty has to do...

Residential lenders reported a gradual increase in interest-only originations as 2013 progressed, despite a decline in total production.

Monthly production of single-family MBS went into a steady, year-long decline at the beginning of 2013. In December, total single-family MBS issuance fell to just $77.1 billion, the lowest monthly production figure since July 2011.

If elected, Savitt hopes to serve on the House Financial Services Committee. A past annual president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, he formed NAIHP five years ago.

The tapering of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing beginning this month will do little to end the advantages agency MBS have over new jumbo MBS.

Mel Watt has quickly endeared himself to lenders, home builders and Realtors by delaying (scrapping?) Ed DeMarco's g-fee hike. As for Mr. DeMarco...

The irony cannot be missed: the mortgage insurance sector is profitable again, but its trade group likely will fold.

New FHFA Director Mel Watt is expected to shakeup some of the senior staff at the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID, are drafting their own housing finance reform/GSE bill that likely will be superimposed over the Corker-Warner measure.