Mortgage applications rose 5.5 percent for the week ending Nov. 18, 2016, versus the prior week, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey. The Refinance Index declined 3 percent from the previous week to its lowest level since January 2016. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 19 percent from one week earlier. …
The Federal Communications Commission last week denied a request from the Mortgage Bankers Association to exempt calls from mortgage servicers to borrowers from provisions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Officials at the MBA said the denial was unexpected. Among other issues, the petition had received some support from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The TCPA and FCC rules prohibit...
The HFPC noted that most of the potential mortgages would have gone to borrowers with credit scores below 660, and to a lesser extent, to borrowers with credit scores between 660 and 700.
The Department of Justice lost its bid to have an FHA lawsuit against Quicken Loans heard in the nation’s capital after a federal judge this week ordered the case transferred to federal district court in Michigan. Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with Quicken that the proper forum for adjudicating the government’s False Claims Act case is the Eastern District Court in downtown Detroit. While the court agreed that the case has national implications, it also noted the “strong local interest in this matter in the Eastern District of Michigan,” where “Quicken Loans underwrote the FHA loans at issue, endorsed those loans, and certified its compliance as to those loans.” While certain factors weighed against the transfer, the alleged unlawful activity occurred in or near Detroit, where the lender is headquartered and most of its employees are located. The case, U.S. v. Quicken Loans, ...