Provisions to protect VA borrowers from abusive lending are now in effect after President Trump signed into law a broad regulatory relief package last week. The VA measures are part of S. 2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act of 2018, which the U.S. Senate passed on March 14 and the House approved on May 22. The bipartisan measures became effective for VA loan applications taken on or after May 25, 2018. They were part of the bipartisan Protecting Veterans from Predatory Lending Act, which Sens. Thom Tillis, R-NC, and Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, introduced in January and later incorporated in S. 2155. The bill was designed to protect VA borrowers from loan churning or serial refinancing and specifically targeted the VA’s Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan program, where the churned VA loans ended up. According to the agency, such practices not ...
Officials at the government’s mortgage programs said that major investments in technology will make their programs more efficient and pay for themselves, during a panel session at the Mortgage Bankers Association secondary market conference last week in New York. Michelle Corridon, deputy director in the single-family housing guaranteed loan division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said her program’s focus now is on infrastructure and innovation. The USDA is instituting a technology fee on every closed loan starting in October, she said. The enhanced online system will include new screens for housing, which now shares a landing page with other rural programs. When it’s complete, the new system will handle the process from guaranty commitment through loan delivery. In another efficiency move, rural housing is “rolling up” processing chores to fewer offices so it doesn’t have ...
The majority of active servicemembers and a significant share of veterans obtained zero downpayment mortgages when purchasing a home, compared to 7 percent of non-military, according to a National Association of Realtors’ 2018 survey of recent active-service, veteran and non-military homebuyers. The 2018 Veterans and Active Military Home Buyers Profile found stark differences among the survey participants’ choice of the location of homes they bought, household composition, size of home and reason to move in the future. In terms of the property location, 31 percent of active-duty service members moved to a different region, compared to 20 percent of veterans and 16 percent of non-military. Approximately 25 percent of active-duty military preferred to move within the same region as did 17 percent of vets and 12 percent of non-military. In addition, the survey found a large percentage of ...
California continued to lead all states in FHA and VA mortgage securitization in the first three months of 2018. The Golden State accounted for 15.3 percent of the $50.6 billion of FHA loans delivered into Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities in the first quarter. FHA loans comprised 18.2 percent of loans securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, and 34.6 percent of agency-securitized loans with primary mortgage insurance. About 66.6 percent of FHA loans securitized during the period were for purchase mortgages while refinance loans accounted for 27.5 percent. The average loan-to-value ratio of FHA loans in Ginnie pools was 93.0 percent. The average credit score of 668.2 reflected FHA’s traditional base of lower-income and first-time homebuyers, with an average debt-to-income ratio of 42.4 percent. The other states among the top five in terms of FHA deliveries into Ginnie pools were ... [Chart]
CFPB’s Mick Mulvaney: “Today, after an exhaustive review by outside experts, including a comprehensive ‘white-hat hacking’ effort, we can lift that hold.”
Originations of jumbo mortgages declined across channels in the first quarter with the retail channel gaining market share, according to survey results analyzed by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Jumbo originations reported by survey respondents declined by 30.4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the first quarter of this year. The survey data, gathered by Inside Mortgage Finance, included $40.4 billion of first-quarter jumbo originations, roughly two thirds ... [Includes one data chart]
More small banks can soon receive qualified-mortgage status for certain originations even if the loans would otherwise be non-QMs thanks to provisions in the Dodd-Frank reform legislation signed into law last week. The new type of QM will be available to banks and credit unions with less than $10.0 billion in total assets. Originations held in portfolio by such institutions will receive QM status if they meet a variety of standards. The exemption is already provided to depositories with ...
Mortgages for self-employed borrowers look to be an area of growth for non-agency lenders. Embrace Home Loans and Truss Financial Group introduced separate products for self-employed borrowers recently. Embrace said its “beyond” products will provide finance to borrowers that other lenders have denied. “Beyond is our program that offers financing solutions for borrowers who don’t easily fit into the guidelines for conventional mortgages,” the lender said. “They call it ...
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