The Bureau says it understands the industry’s concerns…

Overall, NYCB will earn, on a pre-tax basis, $90 million by exiting the residential finance sector…

Meanwhile, holders of the GSE junior preferred stock receive nothing from Fannie and Freddie in terms of dividends.

Just 18 percent of respondents said they do not want the GSEs preserved in their current state...

We kid you not: Home loans from a firm called Homie...

Wells Fargo, which has the largest portfolio of first-lien mortgages, reported a 3.2 percent drop in its holdings, down to $272.72 billion as of the end of the first quarter.

The new sentiment survey also found that “slightly more lenders” reported they expect to decrease the share of MSR sold...

The Mortgage Bankers Association is calling for a moratorium on future claims against FHA lenders under the False Claims Act to give the Department of Housing and Urban Development sufficient time to streamline its defect taxonomy and revise its loan-level certification requirements. In letters to HUD and the Department of Justice, the MBA said the FHA has yet to issue clear standards identifying specific errors that could trigger an FCA claim and those that do not. FCA enforcement actions can result in very significant damage to a lender’s reputation and bottom line, warned Dave Stevens, MBA president and chief executive officer. Although FHA lenders work hard to ensure compliance with strict underwriting and documentation standards, origination, insurance and servicing depend heavily on human efforts, which could easily result in technical errors, he added. While lenders process ...

Industry comments on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s plan to streamline and clarify agency regulations and discard those that have outlived their usefulness reflect mixed priorities.The Mortgage Bankers Association and the American Bankers Association chose to focus on a single issue, while the National Association of Realtors, the Community Home Lenders Association and the Consumer Mortgage Coalition called for changes on multiple issues. A HUD task force is sifting through department regulations to identify those for repeal, replacement, clarification or amendment. The regulatory review is in response to President Trump’s directive to reduce regulatory burden and control regulatory costs. While the MBA called for a freeze on all future False Claims Act enforcement actions against lenders (see story on p. 6), the ABA raised concerns about ...

The FHA has issued guidance to lenders and appraisers regarding problems that have arisen since the agency announced its Electronic Appraisal Delivery (EAD) portal in 2015. Effective June 27, FHA will require appraisals for new FHA originations to be submitted through the EAD. The portal’s use has been voluntary. Users without a valid user ID for accessing the EAD portal will be locked out of the system after the effective date, the FHA warned. Users that have not signed on the FHA Connection will lose their user ID. Only their organization’s FHAC application coordinator can reinstate them and restore access to the portal. “Hard stop” messages, which are built into the EAD portal, indicate data errors that must be resolved before the appraisal can be successfully transmitted to FHA. This helps avoid potential data conflicts between the portal and FHA. The FHA has identified five hard-stop errors ...