The Department of Veterans Affairs has issued new guidance on a number of topics, including foreclosure relief in disaster areas, property management and servicing, lender’s payment or credit of veterans’ costs, acceptance of properties, redemption procedures, and reconveyance disputes. VA has extended the moratorium on foreclosures in areas that suffered the brunt of hurricanes Harvey, Maria and Irma from 180 days to 270 days to give more time for distressed homeowners with a VA mortgage to recover their financial footing. VA also extended the rescission date of guidance regarding its reconveyance dispute process and servicer statutory redemption procedures from Jan. 1, 2018, to Oct. 1, 2020. VA issued additional servicing guidance on real estate-owned properties and direct loan portfolio (VA’s national portfolio), which is currently serviced by ...

Private MIs seized a bigger share of the market in 2017, even as VA rebounded strongly in the fourth quarter, an Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of the primary MI market found. Private MIs wrote $69.9 billion in new flow business in the fourth quarter, down 9.7 percent from the previous quarter. Private MI business accounted for 39.2 percent of total primary MI written in the quarter while FHA lost ground after business dropped 10.9 percent, leaving it with a reduced 33.3 percent market share for the period. After having a stellar year in 2016, VA lending eased to 24.1 percent of the primary MI market last year – still its third-best year since the financial crisis. The tiger in VA’s tank was refinance, which accounted for 44.1 percent of the agency’s lending, compared to just 9.8 percent of private ...

With three mortgage insurers providing about two-thirds of the mortgage insurance coverage to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General warned of potential risk down the road. Meanwhile, mortgage insurers seek to confirm their place in housing-finance reform discussions. Although mortgage insurers are more stable today, emerging trends point to a number of potential risks to the GSEs that warrant monitoring. One of the OIG’s concerns is that relying on a small number of counterparties increases the GSEs’ exposure to any individual counterparty. The report noted that although six PMIs are approved to provide coverage for the GSEs as of the end of September 2017, three insurers provided the bulk of their coverage.

Half of the six active private mortgage insurers in the market reported solid earnings gains on their core MI business during the fourth quarter of 2017, enough to offset losses at the other three firms. As a group, the private MI industry generated $834.7 million in pre-tax income from their U.S. mortgage insurance operations during the fourth quarter. That was up 7.1 percent from the previous period and raised full-year income to $3.06 billion. The full-year ... [Includes one data chart]

FHA and VA single-family originations fell in the fourth quarter of 2017 due to a decline in purchase mortgage originations that was offset somewhat by an increase in refinance business. FHA endorsed $237.3 billion in forward single-family mortgages in 2017 notwithstanding an 11.9 percent drop in the fourth quarter. FHA production also dropped 7.1 percent year-over-year. Market observers attributed the decline in FHA originations to high mortgage insurance premiums, stiffer competition from private lenders’ low-downpayment programs, and a more aggressive conventional-conforming mortgage market. A new analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance also found that government-backed lending and the jumbo market saw the biggest production declines from the prior quarter. In particular, IMF’s research found that FHA, VA and U.S. Department of Agriculture rural-housing originations fell ... [Charts]

The Trump administration is seeking additional budget allocations in FY 2019 for FHA and Ginnie Mae to pay technology upgrades, additional staffing, and increased issuer oversight. The budget request seeks an additional $20 million above the 2017 enacted level of $130 million for FHA to upgrade its aging information technology – some still based on the antiquated COBOL programming language – and contract support. The additional funding would be offset by charging lenders an IT fee of no more than $25 per loan, according to the proposed budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In addition, the 2019 HUD budget requests $400 billion in new loan guarantees under the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund for forward single-family mortgages Home Equity Conversion Mortgages, multifamily housing, and manufactured housing. The requested $400 billion would remain available ...

A greater focus on reverse-mortgage servicing and loss mitigation would be effective in addressing property-charge foreclosures while also preserving the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program’s core mission of helping cash-strapped senior citizens, says a new study from the National Consumer Law Center. The study by staff attorney Odette Williamson and Sarah Mancini, of counsel to the NCLC, said the government’s mistaken response to surging insurance claims and increasing defaults on property tax and insurance obligations was to change origination policies. Specifically, the Department of Housing and Urban Development reduced the proceeds available through a reverse mortgage and imposed new underwriting guidelines to curb rising reverse-mortgage foreclosures and stem increased losses to the FHA insurance fund. Although the repercussions of the two distinct problems related to ...

IG Looking into Role Secretary’s Family Plays at HUD. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general is looking into the role members of Secretary Ben Carson’s family have played at the agency, CNN reported this week. According to the report, Carson himself called for the IG review following an earlier Washington Post report that HUD officials are raising ethics questions about the activities of Carson’s son and daughter-in-law at the agency, including helping to organize a listening tour for the new secretary in Baltimore last year. HUD’s lawyers reportedly warned Carson of a potential violation of federal ethics rules, according to an internal memo the Post obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Ginnie Mae MBS Outstanding Increases to $1.9 Trillion. Ginnie Mae’s mortgage backed-securities issuance totaled $36.4 billion in January, which included ...

Private mortgage insurers took a bigger share of the primary MI market last year, although the VA program rebounded in the fourth quarter, a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis reveals.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture provided $19.3 billion in rural housing loan guarantees under its largest single-family housing program in FY 2017, according to the USDA Rural Housing Service. Last year’s total guarantees were $2.92 billion more than in fiscal 2016. Approximately 137,071 USDA loans were securitized in 2017. According to RHS, in October 2017, the loan guarantee upfront fee fell from 2.75 percent plus a monthly 0.5 percent fee to 1.0 percent plus an annual fee of 0.35 percent. The fee drop helped reverse a decline in obligations from the previous year, RHS noted. The average income for a Section 502 single-family guaranteed loan borrower was $59,191 in fiscal 2017, up from $57,962 in the prior fiscal year. For the lower-income Section 502 Direct program, USDA provided approximately $1.0 billion in housing loan guarantees, about $41.7 million higher than the ...