Potential violations to a servicing agreement Ocwen Financial signed in 2011 with the New York State Department of Financial Services have stalled Ocwen’s efforts to close its acquisition of Homeward Residential and servicing from Residential Capital. Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the DFS, said he would not approve Ocwen’s latest acquisitions until a monitor was established to oversee Ocwen’s compliance with the September 2011 agreement. This week, Ronald Faris, president and CEO of Ocwen ...

Institutional investors are creating a rental market out of real estate owned properties without a mortgage-backed security structure in place, though industry participants anticipate that a REO rental securitization market will eventually develop. Some $8.0 billion has been raised by institutional investors to purchase REOs and rent them, according to Oliver Chang, founder and managing director of Sylvan Road Capital, which itself expects to invest $1.0 billion in the market in the next two years ...

Expressing concern about a potential FHA bailout, Sen. Tim Johnson, D-SD, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, said that he is prepared to work with Republicans on a bipartisan solution to keep the FHA solvent should government measures fail. This week, Johnson called a hearing to know more about the administrative and legislative action plan the Department of Housing and Urban Development has put together to restore the financial health of the FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. A recent independent actuarial audit revealed that ...

The FHA is working on a statistical model that incorporates new factors to help the agency target loan-level compliance reviews and in-depth lender examinations more precisely, according to a top agency official. The model’s selection criteria is not lender-specific but focus instead on attributes in the loan file that have the highest propensity or probability of containing a material deficiency or defect that could result in a loss for the FHA insurance fund, said Justin Birch, director of the FHA Quality Assurance Division. The model was developed for post-endorsement reviews, which currently are ...

Ginnie Mae is increasing its scrutiny of issuers and tightening the screening of new issuer applicants to ensure that all participants in its mortgage-backed securities program fulfill their obligations. The agency is concerned about issuers coming in with little understanding of how the program works and what their responsibilities are, and putting Ginnie Mae at risk, said Michael Drayne, senior vice president at Ginnie Mae’s Office of Issuer and Portfolio Management, during a recent webinar hosted by Inside Mortgage Finance. Drayne noted Ginnie Mae’s success, saying that the only way it would not be profitable is ...

Mortgage-backed securities production by the top Ginnie Mae issuers in the third quarter of 2012 slipped but not by enough to offset the 32.1 percent gain on a year-over-year basis, according to an Inside FHA Lending analysis of Ginnie Mae data. Ginnie Mae MBS issuance fell by a mere 0.1 percent from the second quarter, a hiccup that would have been easily cured had any of the top five issuers posted even a modest gain. All five issuers saw their issuances fall during the quarter. The top issuers reported a total of $100.57 billion in MBS sold to investors at the end of the third quarter, down from $100.62 billion the previous quarter. The slip disrupted an ...

The mortgage banking industry is urging Congress to reject the FHA’s call to eliminate the existing “knew or should have known” standard in the National Housing Act in connection with an agency proposal to extend indemnification authority to all direct-endorsement lenders. Both proposals are part of legislative and administrative measures sought by the FHA to strengthen its capability to manage risk and protect its Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. A recent independent actuarial review of the fund found that in FY 2012 the economic value of the FHA’s single-family portfolio had dropped to negative $13.5 billion (excluding Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans) and that ...

The FHA has extended a temporary waiver of its regulation that prohibits property flipping in the single-family mortgage insurance program to encourage more investors to participate in agency efforts to ease its burgeoning inventory of real estate-owned properties. First issued in January 2010, the regulatory waiver is now effective through Dec. 31, 2014, after two previous adjustments since issuance. Prior to the waiver, a mortgage was not eligible for FHA insurance if the purchaser sold the property within 90 days of its acquisition and is ...

Valuation of mortgage servicing rights has been challenging for many market participants, particularly with the incredible pace of change occurring in the mortgage servicing industry. Hence, it is important for servicers to have the basic building blocks to a solid MSR valuation process and a full understanding of the company for pricing and valuation purposes, suggests a recent study from PricewaterhouseCoopers. PwC noted that MSR valuations for seasoned portfolios have dropped ...

The major servicers use three different models to implement single point of contact requirements, with no clear answer as to which model is the best, according to a new report from the Treasury Department. Servicers report seeing benefits from SPOC requirements though there are also concerns with the new servicing model. A SPOC works with a borrower to determine options throughout the loss mitigation process. The Treasury requires servicers participating in the Home Affordable Modification Program to ...