On Tuesday the Fed will hold an open meeting to discuss final rule-making tied to the Basel III accords, which affects the value of mortgage servicing rights.
In response to a significant amount of public input and private bellyaching from the mortgage finance industry, the CFPB last week issued a number of proposed clarifications and revisions to several mortgage rulemakings finalized in January 2013, including changes to those having to do with loan originator compensation. The proposed changes would, among other things, clarify the definition of a loan originator. Under the CFPBs January 2013 loan originator compensation final rule, persons classified as loan originators...
It appears that Cerberus is going down the mortgage aisle one more time. Let's hope it doesn't end like GMAC. Meanwhile, jumbo MBS market seizes up, temporarily.
Bank and thrift holdings of home-equity loans continue to decline, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance Bank Mortgage Database. Performance on the loans has been mixed, and there are concerns about the expiring interest-only period on vintage home-equity lines of credit. Banks and thrifts held $1.07 trillion in HELs HELOCs, unused HELOC commitments and closed-end second liens at the end of the first quarter of 2013, down 1.8 percent from the previous quarter. TD Bank was ... [Includes one data chart]
The five servicers involved in the $25 billion national servicing settlement have largely complied with the 304 standards included in the settlement. However, Bank of America, CitiMortgage, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo each failed at least one metric tested in the settlement and could face monetary penalties. In a report released last week, Joseph Smith, the settlements monitor, said he found eight failed metrics: two by BofA, three by Citi, two by Chase and one by Wells Fargo. Only the ...
An FHA proposal for new legislative authority to transfer servicing has raised concerns among industry participants, particularly in the Ginnie Mae market. Authorizing the FHA to shift mortgage-servicing rights from one servicer to another could have a ripple effect on Ginnie Mae servicing rights and also adversely impact state mortgage servicing and origination licenses, some say. The bottom line is that Congress should consider FHAs request for new statutory authority with great care, said Larry Platt, a compliance attorney and a partner at the Washington law firm K&L Gates. We would hope that ...
The FHAs tiered system for assessing servicers use of loss mitigation tools should serve more as a red flag for increased supervision rather than as a basis for terminating servicing rights, said the Mortgage Bankers Association. Commenting on the FHAs proposed enhancements to its servicer scorecard, the MBA acknowledged the agencys responsibility to monitor and hold servicers accountable for poor performance. But while tiered ranking is a good enforcement tool, it can be misapplied, the group indicated. Any ranking system is a good first ...
The Department of Veterans Affairs will soon seek comments on certain proposed rules that would allow VA underwriting guidelines to remain independent of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and to also implement a lender scorecard. After a lengthy discussion with the CFPB regarding the qualified mortgage rule, the VA said it will propose a rule that would prohibit CFPBs new underwriting guidelines from superseding existing VA guidelines. The VA feels there is no need for any significant change to its current underwriting rules due to ...