With only days to go before the implementation of its new Loan Review System, the FHA is encouraging lenders to take a few more steps to ensure smooth transition to the new system. The LRS will go live on May 15, 2017, as the new electronic platform for FHA’s Title II single-family, quality-control processes. Lenders will use the LRS to interact with FHA during post-endorsement loan reviews, direct endorsement authority test cases, lender monitoring reviews and lender self-reporting of fraud and other material findings. Findings will be communicated through the system’s defect taxonomy, which provides a streamlined method of identifying and capturing information about defects uncovered during individual loan reviews. In its latest guidance, the FHA instructs lenders to check access to FHA Connection for any potential glitches. All users access the LRS through FHA Connection via the ...

New USDA Chief. Former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue was sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture on April 25, shortly after the Senate confirmed him. At the same time, President Trump signed an executive order creating a task force on growing housing, among other things, as an economic driver in rural communities. Improved Lender Search List Launched. The FHA last week announced an improved lender list-search capability to help the public search for FHA-approved single-family and multifamily lenders. The search engine allows search on a variety of criteria, including lender name, city, state, servicer-originator type, and recent Home Equity Conversion Mortgage or 203(k) rehabilitation mortgage experience. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s new Lender List Search web page replaces the previous Lender List lookup page on HUD.gov. While search criteria have not ...

A former Congressman, Watt knows full well that by allowing Fannie and Freddie to build capital once again it will set off a political firestorm...

The key factor for the greater MI penetration was the relatively stronger performance of purchase-mortgage lending compared to refinance activity…

Overall, Arch MI wrote coverage on $12.66 billion of home mortgages in the first quarter, of which 81.9 percent were monthly premium policies…

The second major complaint of the ABA is the rule’s potential negative effect on commercial real estate lending.

During the hearing Thursday, Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN, called “the whole issue of them running out of resources” baseless.

PHH Mortgage, Walter Investment Management Corp. and Ocwen Financial these days are all working from the same survival playbook: sell their most valuable asset – mortgage servicing rights – and remain as the subservicer of record. The idea is simple. All three hope to raise cash by selling MSR assets, eliminate the need to hold large sums for servicing advances and – importantly – buy some time. There’s...

The Trump administration’s tax-reform plan could boost home sales somewhat, though the National Association of Realtors and National Association of Home Builders have raised significant concerns about the treatment of deductions. At the end of April, the Trump administration released a one-page outline for reforming federal taxes. It calls for doubling the standard deduction to $24,000, maintaining the mortgage interest deduction and repealing the deduction for state and local taxes. William Brown, president of NAR, said the plan would effectively eliminate...

Private mortgage insurers were the largest providers of insurance coverage on purchase loans securitized by the three agencies in early 2017, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis. Private MI coverage was attached to $40.08 billion of purchase mortgages securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the first quarter. That equaled 26.3 percent of total purchase business by the two government-sponsored enterprises and Ginnie Mae. The FHA provided...[Includes one data table]