FHA/VA lender Castle & Cooke Mortgage is embarking on a major expansion that could boost their standing in the government-backed market if things work out as planned. The Salt Lake City-based retail lender is in the midst of an aggressive expansion plan to be in 48 states by the end of 2016, according to Adam Thorpe, who was named president and chief operating officer in late 2014. C&C’s government-backed lending activities are mostly in the West with licenses to operate in 18 states. Recently the company, which entered the mortgage market in 2005, opened a new branch office in Anaheim, CA, bringing to 36 the number of C&C branch offices across the country. Orange County and the Southern California housing market are among the priciest in the nation, and the high demand and lower inventory in those areas can be good for government and ...
If the pace continues over the second half of the year – and strong consumer demand for apartments suggests it will – 2015 would become the best year ever in agency multifamily MBS.
Some industry officials, including Marc Savitt, president of the National Association of Independent Housing Professionals, are worried about the methodology of the project...
Banks with significant portfolio capacity continue to stock up on mortgages because they offer strong returns and can help efforts to cross-sell other products. While most of the mortgages being added to portfolios are jumbos, in some instances banks are retaining conventional mortgages. JPMorgan Chase reported that it added mortgages with a balance of $19.0 billion to its portfolio holdings during the second quarter of 2015. Marianne Lake, chief financial officer at the bank ...
United Wholesale Mortgage announced this week that it’s offering interest-only mortgages, joining a growing number of banks and nonbanks originating the loans that don’t meet standards for qualified mortgages. Officials at United Wholesale noted a distinction in the lender’s IO product: “Large banking institutions have widely offered this option, but mostly restricted its availability to jumbo borrowers,” United Wholesale said. The lender is offering IOs with ...
Industry participants largely support a plan from the Federal Housing Finance Agency for adjustments to the conforming loan limit. The $417,000 loan limit applicable to the government-sponsored enterprises could be increased as soon as January, depending on house-price appreciation trends over the next few months. The FHFA’s proposal said the regulator planned to use the “expanded data” house price index that the agency has published since 2011 to ...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is considering revising income documentation standards to help borrowers that have nontraditional sources of income, according to Richard Cordray, the director of the agency. At a hearing last week by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Sen. Mark Warner, D-VA, raised concerns about the income documentation standards included in Appendix Q of the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule. Non-agency lenders ...
Department of Housing and Urban Development program staff and the agency’s inspector general are reportedly at loggerheads over an IG recommendation to deny FHA insurance to loans that receive downpayment assistance from programs funded through premium-pricing mechanisms. Responding to critics, the HUD OIG is standing by its audit findings, which could force the HUD deputy secretary to intervene in order to resolve the issues raised by the audit report and restore lender confidence. The report’s recommendation has alarmed lenders that participate in downpayment assistance “gift” programs run by housing finance agencies (HFAs). This prompted Ed Golding, HUD’s principal deputy assistant secretary for housing and head of the FHA, to issue a clarification of the FHA’s position on the issue. Golding’s note reaffirmed FHA’s support for certain downpayment assistance programs (DAPs), “like those run by ...