The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General has finalized settlements with two direct endorsement lenders to resolve allegations of violating FHA underwriting requirements. Golden First Mortgage Corp. and Group One Mortgage agreed to pay a total of $36.41 million to the federal government in reparation for losses incurred by the FHA on the defaulted loans. Based in Great Neck, NY, Golden First, a privately held company, and its owner/president, David Movtady, allegedly falsely certified to FHA and HUD that the loans the company endorsed for insurance met all FHA requirements. This went on from 2002 through 2010, the OIG alleged. The OIG accused the company and Movtady of violating the False Claims Act, which prohibits acts to defraud the federal government and which has been instrumental in ...

VA mortgage servicers disputing a final reconveyance decision must submit the information themselves to the Department of Veterans Affairs, not the foreclosure attorney, according to new guidance issued by the agency. The new policy became effective on March 13, 2015, and spells out the process for a servicer to dispute a final reconveyance decision. Reconveyance is the transferring of a clean property title to a buyer after a secured debt, such as a deed of trust or mortgage, has been paid in full. The VA developed a reconveyance dispute process with Vendor Resource Management, a real estate asset management company, to address servicer disagreements pertaining to the reconveyance of an asset. Servicers are now required to complete and submit information regarding reconveyance disputes to VRM via email. Disputes must be received directly from ...

In years past, some have likened Fannie and Freddie to being giant thrift institutions...

Maverick, which will take on the Home Point name, services roughly $1 billion in home mortgages.

The nation’s two largest nonbank servicers – Ocwen Financial and Nationstar Mortgage – have relatively low replenishment rates, meaning it’s harder for them to replace portfolio runoff through new production, according to a new analysis from Inside Mortgage Finance. Based on full-year origination and servicing figures for 2014, Ocwen was only originating enough new loans to replace 1.03 percent of its servicing portfolio. Nationstar had a somewhat stronger replenishment rate of 4.46 percent. In the overall market, 2014 originations of $1.24 trillion equaled...[Includes one data chart]

Residential originations for the group fell 45.7 percent from 2013, indicating that profit margins shrank slightly more than production volume.

Some 16 single-borrower SFR rental deals have been issued since the market came to life in November 2013.

The Prestwick Group is selling a Fannie/Freddie $167 million bulk deal with a monthly flow component of $15 million to $20 million.

An outside public relations representative for RoundPoint said the company does not comment on M&A rumors.

To understand the plight of the publicly traded REO vendor, you first have to understand where it came from...