Almost half of the people buying a home these days do not shop around for their mortgages, according to a report issued this week by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. So to help remedy that, the bureau rolled out an online rate-checker tool – something that immediately set off a firestorm of opposition from mortgage brokers and originators. Rate Checker, part of a broader CFPB initiative called Owning a Home, is intended to help consumers understand what interest rates may be available to them, said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “It incorporates information from lenders’ internal rate sheets, information they use to calculate what interest rate is available for a particular consumer. In other words, we are giving consumers direct access to the same type of information that the lenders themselves have. “By plugging in their credit score, their location and information about the loan they are seeking, they can see...
Buybacks and indemnifications by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sellers fell sharply during the third quarter of 2014, according to an analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends, an affiliated newsletter. The two government-sponsored enterprises reported a total of just $543.1 million of repurchases and indemnifications of securitized mortgages in disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That was down a whopping 68.7 percent from the second quarter and was, by far, the lowest quarterly buyback total since the GSEs started disclosing such activity in early 2012. In fact, Fannie and Freddie withdrew...
Falling interest rates and a pending cut in FHA insurance premiums are prompting many lenders to prepare for a boost in refinance activity. “Recent-period lows should stimulate strong refinance activity,” said Bard Blackwell, an executive vice president and portfolio business manager at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. He noted that low yields on 10-year Treasury notes have helped to decrease interest rates on mortgages in recent months. As of press time, the yield on 10-year Treasuries fell...
Marc Savitt, president of the National Association of Independent Housing Professionals, pointed to a flaw in the beta version of Rate Checker: it doesn't show the annual percentage rate.
Meanwhile, JPM marked down the asset value of its residential servicing portfolio to $7.436 billion at Dec. 31, 2014, a 10 percent reduction from 3Q14.
One servicing advisor raised an interesting scenario Tuesday: Maybe Bill Erbey will swoop in and buy all of Ocwen’s shares and take the whole thing private.
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