The CFPB and the Federal Housing Finance Agency apparently are mailing $5 bills as “a small token of appreciation” to new homeowners to encourage them to participate in a survey associated with the agencies’ joint project to develop a national mortgage database, Inside the CFPB has learned. “I am writing to ask for your help with an important national survey of consumers about their mortgage loan experiences,” says a joint sample letter prepared with CFPB letterhead, with room for a signature for a representative from both agencies. “I understand that in the last 12 months you obtained a mortgage for your home (or a residence that is rented or otherwise occupied by others). Your recent experience is very important to...
Who gave up market share to nonbank lenders? The biggest decline was among banks with over $1 trillion in assets: JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup.
In a development with potentially negative implications for lenders, servicers and investors in student loan ABS, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a report this week critical of the “auto-default” practice seen in private student lending. According to the CFPB’s Mid-Year Update on Student Loan Complaints, borrowers say that some lenders demand immediate full repayment upon the death or bankruptcy of their loan co-signer, even in cases when the loan is current. Borrowers also said they confronted bureaucratic barriers to releasing co-signers from their loans, something that could help avoid auto-defaults. “Students often rely...
At one shop based in the Midwest there’s unconfirmed talk of loan officers who haven’t been paid for months, unpaid leases and top executives who were on vacation as volumes collapsed.
A number of lenders have loosened their underwriting standards on non-agency products in recent months in an effort to boost originations as demand for refinances plummets. One of the boldest moves was taken by TD Bank, which this week announced a portfolio loan that has a downpayment requirement as low as 3 percent. The loan is part of the lender’s Right Step mortgage program which features low downpayment loans without private mortgage insurance ...
United Wholesale Mortgage is now offering jumbos on a wholesale basis with debt-to-income ratios as high as 49 percent allowed. The loans won’t receive protections for qualified mortgages as the DTI ratio limit for jumbo QMs is 43 percent. Loan amounts on United Wholesale’s Big & Easy Plus loan go up to $1.5 million. The lender said it will allow loan-to-value ratios on the mortgage of up to 75 percent while a borrower will need ... [Includes four briefs]
FHA originations dropped a hefty 28.3 percent in February from January and 59.1 percent from the same period a year ago, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of agency data. FHA lenders reported $8.2 billion in new forward mortgages for February, down from $11.4 billion for January and $19.5 billion from a year ago. Approximately 73.9 percent of the loans were purchase mortgages. Industry observers attributed the continuing decline in FHA production to multiple and costly insurance premium hikes, revocation of the borrower’s right to cancel premium payments during the term of the loan and rising interest rates. For the week ending April 18, the interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with FHA insurance increased to 4.20 percent from 4.14 percent, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association weekly application survey. FHA officials said the policy changes were necessary to ... [1 chart]
Wells Fargo has expanded its acceptance of electronic signatures on FHA mortgage-related documents to correspondent lenders – a move that could spur other lenders to consider a similar shift as purchase originations rise. Details of the expansion are available in Wells Fargo current Seller Guide. However, access is restricted to correspondent lenders because the guide contains proprietary information, according to a company spokesman. DocuSign, whose Digitized Transaction Management (DTM) platform is being used by Wells Fargo and other financial services clients, said the expansion follows FHA’s announcement earlier this year of acceptance of e-signatures on all single-family origination and servicing/loss mitigation documents, FHA claims and real estate-owned sales contracts, with the exception of notes. The FHA announcement builds on an ...