Although Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have, for years, had minimum capital requirements for mortgage companies that want to become seller/servicers, the Federal Housing Finance Agency and state regulators are now exploring codifying a capital minimum for nonbanks, according to industry officials and state regulators. During a webinar this week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, participants highlighted the “hot topic” nature of capital requirements for nonbanks. John Prendergast, vice president of non-depository supervision for the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, indicated that capital requirements for nonbanks are more of a matter of when, not if. However, participants who have been tracking the matter caution...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency will “assess the merits of litigation” against Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s servicers and lender-placed insurance providers to recover premium overpayments by the government-sponsored enterprises following a pointed suggestion to do so by the agency’s official watchdog. A new audit released by the FHFA’s Inspector General found that Fannie and Freddie could have overpaid about $158 million in 2012 alone for lender-placed or “force-placed” insurance policies. The IG said it calculated its $158 million figure as the difference between the amount the GSEs actually paid in premiums – $360 million – and a “reasonable” price for such coverage – $202 million. “Our retrospective analysis suggests...

As the spring homebuying season has progressed, lenders have improved closing times for purchase mortgages, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. Industry participants also report improvements to good faith estimates with fewer closing cost surprises for borrowers. Closing times declined on a number of different mortgage types, based on three-month moving averages. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages with a downpayment of at least 20 percent took...

What does the future hold for the hedge fund-owned Prospect Mortgage?

The FHFA will weigh the merits of taking legal action against vendors, but could take upwards of 12 months to make a final decision.

We talked a handful of wholesalers and were told the figure is much lower – in the range of 2.2 percent to 2.5 percent. Broker-sourced loans account for less than 10 percent of all loans funded today,

But do Fannie and Freddie really represent a faulty business model, as the White House and Treasury Department keep declaring?

It is unclear exactly when Jay Memmott left Seterus.

In other mortgage-stock news, Ellie Mae Co-founder, Chairman and CEO Sig Anderman has been exercising stock options of late, and selling shares in the company.

On Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages with private mortgage insurance, average closing times declined to 42.5 days from 46.0 days.