According to industry sources, the FHA recently sent out administrative letters to a handful of residential lenders. Meanwhile, yet another new subprime originator has emerged.

The Obama administration extended the deadline to apply for the Home Affordable Modification Program and related loss mitigation program through the end of 2015. The programs under the Making Home Affordable Program were scheduled to expire at the end of this year. HAMP has seen somewhat limited activity among non-agency servicers, even with incentive payments for principal forgiveness. Some $22.7 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program funds are targeted for non-agency HAMP activity ... [Includes one data chart]

A recent Federal Reserve survey of bank lending practices further confirmed a continuing trend among FHA lenders of refusing to lend to borrowers with FICO scores below 620 even though they qualify for the loan and could afford the required minimum 3.5 percent cash investment. About a third of senior loan officers who responded to the April 2013 survey indicated they were less likely to approve FHA home-purchase loan applications within the 580-620 FICO range this year compared to last year. They prefer lending to borrowers with a 720 FICO and who are making a 10 to 20 percent downpayment, the survey showed. An estimated 75 percent of banks cited the ...

The Texas House of Representatives has approved legislation that will let voters decide on Nov. 5 whether to allow home-equity purchase lending in the Lone Star State. The bill would amend the Texas constitution to authorize Home Equity Conversion Mortgage for Purchase loans, which would make the program available to Texans for the first time. The state legislature voted 139 to 1 in favor of Senate Joint Resolution 18, which the Texas Senate approved unanimously in March. Specifically, the bill would amend the state constitution to ... [One chart]

Wall Street raised no objections to a Ginnie Mae proposal to consolidate its two mortgage-backed securities programs, indicating the move would be good for securitization and result in other positives. However, there appeared to be no consensus among players on how to get there. Representatives of Ginnie Mae and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association met early this month to discuss the agency’s proposal. Analysts agreed it is far too early in the game to discern a clear path towards a single Ginnie Mae MBS program and that implementation is likely years away. Nevertheless, there were ...

Ginnie Mae servicers reported a small increase in servicing volume during the first three months of 2013, with Ocwen Loan Servicing posting the largest gains from last quarter and from a year ago. Servicers held a total of $1.33 trillion in government-backed mortgage debt outstanding at the end of the quarter, up a notch from the fourth quarter and 8.2 percent more than the total Ginnie Mae servicing debt a year ago. Though Ocwen was fifth in the ranking with $36.08 billion, its servicing volume was up more than 1000 percent both from the last quarter and from the same period last year. Among the top Ginnie servicers, only ... [One chart]

A top official of the Department of Housing and Urban Development said the agency is as concerned as Congress and the industry about mortgages seized through the power of eminent domain and will not refinance any mortgage taken in this manner. Testifying at a recent hearing before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, Charles Coulter, deputy assistant secretary for housing, said FHA leadership is very much concerned about the idea of seizing troubled mortgages held in private-label securitizations under the power of ...

Through the first quarter of 2013, 1.1 million borrowers have received permanent HAMP modifications, well below the 3 million to 4 million the Obama administration projected when launching the program in 2009.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week finalized amendments to its ability-to-repay rule to revise how loan origination compensation is calculated for certain purposes. The agency also provided exemptions and modifications for small creditors, community development lenders and housing stabilization programs. The Dodd-Frank Act generally provides that points and fees on a qualified mortgages may not exceed 3 percent of the loan balance, and that points and fees in excess of 5 percent will trigger the protections for high-cost mortgages under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act. Dodd-Frank also included a provision requiring that loan originator compensation be counted toward these thresholds, even if it is not paid upfront by the consumer directly to the loan originator. The revised rule excludes...

The long-awaited boom in nonperforming loan sales may finally be here, as megabanks such as Wells Fargo, Citigroup and HSBC have begun testing investor appetites by offering large packages in the open market. According to investors and advisors who play in the space, Wells recently auctioned off an $800 million NPL package and HSBC sold a $750 million portfolio. Recently, Popular Bank said that it entered...