Mortgage lender representatives urged the CFPB recently to delay its project to address the “pain points” associated with the mortgage closing process until after its integrated disclosure rule under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the Truth in Lending Act takes effect and is fully digested by the industry. “The new rule is intended to greatly simplify consumer disclosures, eliminate surprises at closing and broadly improve the consumer experience,” said the American Bankers Association, the Financial Services Roundtable of the...

HMDA Rulemaking on Consumer Advisory Board Agenda. The CFPB has scheduled a Consumer Advisory Board meeting for Feb. 26-27, at the Constitution Center (Auditorium), 400 7th Street SW, Washington, DC. The first day of the event is closed to the public. A close look at the agenda indicates an hour has been set aside for some discussion on a possible Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rulemaking. Speakers scheduled during that session include Mortgage Data Assets Team Lead Ren Essene and Senior Counsel Joan Kayagil. A session later in the day will be...

The lawsuit seeks to recover unspecified damages and penalties from the defendants for using fraudulent mortgage assignments and FHA endorsements to submit tens of thousands of false FHA claims from 2000 through 2010.

For an industry that’s looking at a 30 percent decline in originations, we’re seeing a great deal of SEC 13-d filings by investment funds that are upping their stakes in such players as MGIC, Radian, Ocwen, Walter, EverBank and the like.

One of the biggest challenges for nonbanks that want to originate jumbos is finding capital to fund the operations. Two Harbors Investment appears to have found a unique source of capital for non-agency originations: a government-sponsored enterprise. In December, TH Insurance Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Two Harbors, was granted membership in the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines. Officials at Two Harbors said the company appears to be the first real estate investment trust to receive ...

Two real estate investment trusts with jumbo mortgage correspondent and conduit operations have scaled back their activity due to strong competition from banks. “The majority of today’s jumbo mortgage activity is being driven by banks originating or acquiring loans for their balance sheet,” said Stanford Kurland, chairman and CEO of PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust. PennyMac had ramped up its jumbo activity in the second quarter of 2013 with $107 million in fundings. In the third quarter of 2013 ...

There are pockets in the jumbo market that offer lenders attractive yields, if they are willing to take on the risk of originating loans that don’t meet qualified-mortgage requirements, according to Matthew Ostrander, CEO of Parkside Lending. The lender recently launched Parkside Mortgage Trust, a real estate investment trust that will purchase non-agency loans originated by Parkside. “Parkside’s analytics of loan performance and product development has been many years in the making to ensure our ...

Increases to guaranty fees under consideration by the Federal Housing Finance Agency would directly reduce the dollar volume of new agency originations by less than 1.0 percent, according to new research published by the Federal Reserve. The g-fee increases were announced in December by Ed DeMarco, the acting director of the FHFA at the time, partly to increase the non-agency share of mortgage originations. The planned increases were put on hold by Mel Watt, the new director of the FHFA, and remain ...

FHA-approved lenders should make sure they leave no stones unturned to ensure that loans submitted for endorsement meet FHA’s strict underwriting criteria. It is the responsibility of direct endorsement lenders to scrutinize every loan for compliance with FHA lending guidelines, including income verification, credit analysis and property appraisals. JPMorgan Chase admitted it failed to do all of the above. Last week, the bank acknowledged it violated the False Claims Act and agreed to pay $614 million in cash to settle government charges it improperly certified poorly underwritten loans for FHA and VA guarantees. The defective loans later ...

The whistleblower whose investigative efforts led to the landmark $25 billion national mortgage settlement between the federal government, 49 state attorneys general and five of the largest mortgage servicers is at it again. This time, Lynn Szymoniak is suing 22 companies for using fraud to obtain FHA insurance – in some instances, VA guaranties – for defective loans that later were securitized through Ginnie Mae and sold to investors. Szymoniak, who is suing under the False Claims Act, gained notoriety from a 2011 interview on “60 Minutes” in which she ...