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 ...

Mortgage originations in the third quarter of 2013 fell to their lowest level since the end of 2011, pulling down industry earnings and expectations for next year. According to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis, lenders generated an estimated $460.0 billion in new home loans during the third quarter. That was down 18.6 percent from the second quarter, when production had rallied slightly. Compared to the first nine months of 2012, origination volume this year was...[Includes two data charts]

In a sign that Senate leaders are continuing their work on comprehensive housing finance reform, representatives of the mortgage lending industry were given an opportunity this week to opine on the exact features such a package should have, and they took full advantage of it. Gary Thomas, president of the National Association of Realtors, speaking before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, offered a baker’s dozen of specific proposals for elements of a future finance system, including an “efficient and adequately regulated secondary market,” which he said is essential to providing affordable mortgages to consumers. Also, the government-sponsored enterprise system “with private profits and taxpayer loss” must be replaced...

Essent Group, a privately capitalized mortgage insurance firm, has announced plans to raise $286 million through the sale of 19.7 million common shares to fund the growth of its MI subsidiary. The initial public offering will be made at a price range of $13.50 to $15.50 per share, according to the company’s filing with Securities and Exchange Commission. Domiciled in Bermuda, Essent has been approved to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “ESNT.” Essent Group is offering...

Early indicators suggest that private mortgage insurers saw an uptick in new business during the third quarter, a time when most mortgage production indicators were losing momentum. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized a total of $58.18 billion of single-family loans that were insured by private MIs during the third quarter, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of loan-level detail. That was up 3.7 percent from the second quarter at a time when total production by the two government-sponsored enterprises declined by 15.6 percent. Private MI-insured loans accounted...[Includes two data charts]

Fannie Mae said this week it is all set for meeting the 2013 risk-sharing goal set by its conservator for each of the government-sponsored enterprises after announcing back-to-back risk-sharing deals over the last two weeks. Fannie this week priced a $675 million bond offering under its Connecticut Avenue Securities series. The deal is backed by a reference pool of more than 112,000 single-family mortgages with an outstanding unpaid principal balance of $27 billion. The company late last week reported...

FHA automation, delegated underwriting and lenders’ willingness to assume the liability risk for quality control allowed FHA lending to proceed with little disruption during the 16-day government shutdown that ended this week. Lenders said they expected no disruption in the origination or closing of FHA loans provided the shutdown did not drag on for an extended period. Individual FHA borrowers with loans in process that required specific actions by FHA staff experienced some delay. Lenders, like Wells Fargo, worked with those customers on a case-by-case basis to ...