The CFPB is apparently disturbed by recent press accounts of possibly discriminatory lending practices by Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance, a lending arm for the mobile home builder Clayton Homes, both of which are part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Company. “The allegations of discrimination and predatory practices raised by the reporting are obviously very concerning to the bureau,” said Sam Gilford, a spokesman for the CFPB. Bureau officials would not comment further. In recent weeks, The Seattle Times and BuzzFeed used data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act to claim that Vanderbilt Mortgage, a manufactured housing lender owned by Clayton, consistently originates loans with higher interest rates for minorities compared with interest rates on loans the company originates for white ...

Consumer complaints to the CFPB fell by double digits in nearly every category during the fourth quarter of 2015, with total complaints down 20.1 percent for the period, despite the one area that showed an increase – prepaid cards – skyrocketing 242.1 percent, according to the latest analysis by Inside the CFPB. However, the lending industry’s performance vis-à-vis consumers generally deteriorated in most categories on an annual basis, the latest data from the CFPB consumer complaint database show.Leading the improved performance during 4Q15 was the student loan sector, which saw gripes drop by a huge 31.7 percent, followed by declines in the debt collection space (off 27.5 percent), and in the home mortgages and credit report categories, both of which saw ...

Technical Corrections to the TRID Made With No Fanfare. Over the holidays, the CFPB quietly made what it characterized as “non-substantial” technical corrections to its integrated mortgage disclosures final rule under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (Regulation X) and the Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z). The November 2013 publication of the bureau’s TRID rule in the Federal Register resulted in “several unintended deletions of existing regulatory text from Reg. Z and the official interpretations (commentary) in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and, in one case, the omission of regulatory language in the TRID from the CFR,” said the CFPB. To correct the CFR, the bureau republished the deleted and omitted text, consistent with the agency’s intent in ...

CFPB Makes Annual Threshold Adjustments Per HMDA, TILA Regulations. Late last month, the CFPB issued two final rules regarding annual threshold adjustments under the implementing regulations for the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and the Truth in Lending Act. Under the HMDA regulation, Reg. C, the asset-size exemption for banks, savings associations and credit unions will remain at $44 million. As a result, such institutions with assets of $44 million or less as of Dec. 31, 2015, are exempt from collecting HMDA data in 2016. “An institution’s exemption from collecting data in 2016 does not affect its responsibility to report the data it was required to collect in 2015,” the CFPB said. The rule became effective Jan. 1, 2016, and applies ...

Residential lenders issued a record $435.8 billion of Ginnie Mae securities in 2015, according to Inside MBS & ABS, a handsome 47 percent increase from the prior year.

Specifically, the bureau’s notice asks for public comment on the agency’s use of resubmission error thresholds and how they should be calculated.

DR Horton’s share price is holding up fairly well, but companies such as KB Homes, Pulte and Toll Brothers are trading near their 52-week lows.

Then again, we also hear reports that the worst of the TRID mess will be over by the end of February…

The flow of new mortgages delivered to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac declined by 19.9 percent from the third to the fourth quarter of 2015, and a larger share of them came from third-party originators, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of mortgage-backed securities data. The two government-sponsored enterprises securitized $179.01 billion of single-family mortgages during the fourth quarter of last year. Although the biggest factor ... [Includes two data charts]

Due diligence provider American Mortgage Consultants recently purchased the like-minded JCIII & Associates for an undisclosed sum, a transaction that could be a harbinger of additional consolidation in the sector. In fact, market sources contend that eventually American Mortgage Consultants will hit the auction block too – it’s just a matter of when. According to one due diligence source, the purchase of JCIII helps AMC build “critical mass,” which will attract buyers or at least ...