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 ...
With bond prices expected to fall further and interest rates headed north, analysts who cover mortgage-investing real estate investment trusts are sharpening their knives on the sector. The general consensus is that share prices are going nowhere fast and returns are no longer attractive. A new report on mortgage REITs from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods doesn’t mince words: “Sentiment on the mREIT sector remains pretty poor, and we don’t anticipate 2Q15 results to do much to improve that. We’re not expecting a horrible quarter, but we anticipate slight disappointment along more or less all relevant dimensions.” Although many mortgage REITs have yet to report second-quarter earnings, the early expectations are...
The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s proposal to remove a key disclosure in a standard HUD/VA form that comes with a residential mortgage closing document is getting flak from the mortgage industry and from some members of Congress. Leading Democrats on the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees are pushing HUD to reconsider the proposal. They fear the proposed change would make it easier for lenders that have engaged in criminal behavior to re-enter the FHA and VA markets and continue their illegal lending practices. Among other things, HUD’s proposal would eliminate the requirement that FHA lenders certify on each loan application that they are not, or have not recently been, subject to certain charges or penalties. In their letter, Senators Sherrod Brown, D-OH, and Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, urged HUD to ...
A multi-million dollar false claim lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice against Wells Fargo in 2012 appears headed to trial unless both sides agree to renegotiate a settlement. Brought under the federal False Claims Act, the lawsuit has moved on to the discovery phase of the litigation following a failed attempt by the parties to reach a settlement. The DOJ has wielded the FCA effectively in the past couple of years in efforts to recover losses from lenders that allegedly committed loan fraud against the FHA. A string of FCA lawsuits against FHA lenders has resulted in approximately $4.5 billion in recoveries for the government. The 2012 lawsuit alleged that Wells Fargo misled the FHA as to the quality of underwriting on 6,320 FHA-insured loans, which later caused approximately $190 million in losses to the agency’s mortgage insurance fund. Wells Fargo has denied the allegations and maintains that, as a ...
HUD Re-Offers Single-Family Loans to Investors. Due to the required release of a Bidder Supplement for Single-Family Loan Sale 2015-1, the Department of Housing and Urban Development re-offered all pools in SFLS 2015-1 on July 16. The offering included National Pools and Neighborhood Stabilization Outcome Pools (NSOs). The NSOs include one pool for which only nonprofit bidders or local-government agencies were allowed to bid. Such pools consist of loans in areas that have been hard hit with foreclosures or that have experienced an economic downturn. The final NSO pool areas include Chicago; Newark, NJ; Camden, NJ; Nassau and Suffolk Counties, NY; Baltimore; and Philadelphia. The NSO pool for Detroit was earmarked for nonprofit and local-government bidders. Sellers Bring $1.53 Billion Servicing Offering to Market. Denver-based Phoenix Capital is in the market with a ...
In a statement, company CEO William Shepro said of new clients: “…our sales pipeline is strong and we are in varying stages of discussions with larger prospects.”
Several large servicing portfolios of $1 billion or more hit the market in the past few weeks, but dealmakers and investors continue to wonder about the largest prize of them all: RoundPoint Mortgage, Charlotte, NC, which owns roughly $52.18 billion of receivables and ranks among the top 25. Investment banking officials who claim to have knowledge of the RoundPoint situation maintain that its owner, The Tavistock Group, is hell-bent on selling the nonbank, but as far as coming to final terms with a buyer, any buyer, that’s a different matter. It’s...
A handful of nonbank lenders are stepping up to the plate, offering mortgages to borrowers who are just one day removed from a foreclosure or short sale. But there’s a catch: many of the lenders willing to extend such credit want at least 20 percent down. Also, as it turns out, the trend is being funded by commercial banks that are serving as the end investors in the product. Two banks – one in California and one in New York – were identified...
American International Group is reportedly bringing to market $300 million in securitized notes backed by mortgage insurance written by its private MI subsidiary United Guaranty Corp., but the global insurance company is playing it close to the vest. AIG and United Guaranty are keeping details of the risk-transfer transaction under wraps and a spokesperson for UG declined to comment. Credit Suisse is the seller of the notes. Citing company marketing documents, Bloomberg reported...
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