The Department of Housing and Urban Development is seeking comment on a draft of a comprehensive Single Family Housing Policy Handbook, which is designed to eliminate confusion in the way the FHA does business. The draft document consolidates all FHA single-family requirements for applying for Title II forward mortgages into a single, authoritative source for FHA single-family policy. It represents the first part of a multi-phased effort to make single-family documents easier to understand and navigate, according to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. “With more than 1,000 mortgagee letters, housing notices, handbooks and other materials – we are taking action,” said Donovan. “We have ...

There is real opportunity for both private mortgage lenders and the FHA to take the initiative in housing reform and not wait for Congress to do the job, according to FHA Commissioner Carol Galante. Discussing housing finance reform at this week’s Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention in Washington, DC, Galante said reform is absolutely essential and that the system of privatized gains and socialized losses should be eliminated. Reform must start “now,” she said. The challenge for FHA and the mortgage industry is to ...

FHA jumbo loan originations continued their quarterly fluctuations as production in the second quarter of 2013 slipped after a good run in the previous quarter, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of FHA data. Volume fell 1.5 percent from the first quarter, during which the FHA posted $5.36 billion in jumbo mortgage originations. The first quarter number broke a declining production trend that began in the second quarter of last year when FHA reported $6.27 billion in jumbo lending. FHA lenders produced a total of $10.8 billion in new jumbo loans in the first half of 2013, down 2.7 percent from ... [2 charts]

FY 2013 Actuarial Report to Congress on the State of the MMIF Delayed. Release of the FY 2013 actuarial audit of the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund will be delayed because of the recent government shutdown, according to a government source. No other details were provided. The FHA recently notified Congress that it would seek a mandatory appropriation of approximately $1.7 billion to bolster its capital reserves for expected future losses. FHA officials said the draw does not suggest anything dire but is simply a matter of ...

Among the nation’s top five lenders in 3Q, Quicken suffered the largest volume decline on a sequential basis. Wells Fargo was a close second.

Bill Erbey, the company's founder and chairman, downplayed concerns that Ocwen is growing too quickly.

Early Thursday, EverBank disclosed that it is selling $13.4 billion of Ginnie Mae servicing rights, while transferring $6.9 billion in subservicing to Walter Investment Management Corp.

The long-rumored sale of roughly $60 billion in mortgage servicing rights by Flagstar Bancorp is likely to get signed in the fourth quarter, but the bank continues to be coy about which investor it’s negotiating with. According to servicing advisors familiar with the transaction, Two Harbors Investment Corp. has been talking to the thrift about buying MSRs, but at press time it was unclear if the real estate investment trust is the winning bidder on the deal. Officials from both firms declined to comment. Flagstar, in a recent earnings call, confirmed...

The audit of the FHA's MMI fund should be ready by Christmas, not Thanksgiving.

Moody’s believes the servicers’ transitions into mortgage originations was positive, but raised concerns about declining refinance opportunities, competition with banks and the potential for nonprime originations.