Effective Feb. 13, 2017, VA lenders will be required to submit prior-approval mortgage loans electronically through the WebLGY system to improve the prior-approval process. Currently, lenders mail their prior-loan approval packages to the regional loan center that has jurisdiction over loan underwriting – a tedious, time-consuming process. Electronic submission will help speed things up, the VA indicated. Lenders must follow the guidelines for prior approval and stacking order in the VA’s Lender Handbook. In addition, lenders must furnish a cover letter with the uploaded package stating the reasons for the prior approval and explaining any unique circumstances. The cover letter also must include the submitting underwriter’s name, phone number and email address as well as contact information for the underwriter’s manager. The lender must ensure that the file contains the correct and complete ...

The Trump administration is expected to put a temporary freeze on the 25 basis point cut in FHA annual premiums that is scheduled to take effect Jan. 27. One industry source noted: “On Jan. 20, President Trump will be issuing an executive order that freezes all past actions over a certain period of time. The FHA premium reduction gets swept into this.” Sources told...

The number of “sold” homes failing to seal the deal come closing time is growing. A new report from Trulia shows that the “sales fail” rate has jumped from 2.1 percent in 2015 to 3.9 percent in 2016. Trulia noted that there was an even bigger jump in incomplete sales in the past two years. Of all listed properties in the fourth quarter of 2014, only 1.4 percent did not reach the closing table. But in the fourth quarter of 2016, the number of failed sales catapulted to 4.3 percent. The reasons those sales are falling through the cracks range...

The 25 basis-point mortgage insurance premium cut announced this week by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s departing leadership could switch $50 billion of issuance from Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac business to FHA as well as cause premium Ginnie Mae MBS to prepay faster, according to market analysts. Absent any adversarial pricing by private mortgage insurers, a guaranty fee adjustment by the Federal Housing Finance Agency or a reversal by the Trump administration, analysts with Bank of America Merrill Lynch see up to 12 percent of purchase and 2 percent of refis shifting to FHA. On June 9, HUD Secretary Julian Castro announced...

Mortgages guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs accounted for 29.4 percent of insured home loans securitized in the agency mortgage-backed securities market in the fourth quarter of 2016, a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis reveals. That was up from a 27.2 percent share for the VA during the third quarter. The home-loan guaranty program has become a refinance dynamo, accounting for a whopping 44.6 percent of insured refi loans ... [Includes one data chart]

Lenders delivered $68.26 billion of single-family loans with private mortgage insurance coverage, including modified loans, into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities during the fourth quarter of 2016, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking. Fourth-quarter private MI activity for the two government-sponsored enterprises was down 10.1 percent from the previous quarter. Overall, Fannie/Freddie single-family MBS production was up 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter. The drop in MI-insured business at the two GSEs tracked...[Includes two data tables]

Any pushback against the FHA’s 25 basis-point cut in the annual mortgage insurance premium remains to be seen despite grumblings from Capitol Hill, said stakeholders and industry analysts. Earlier this week, the outgoing leadership of the Department of Housing and Urban Development surprised the industry by reducing the annual MIP for 30-year FHA mortgages by 25 bps, and eliminated the higher MIP for loans exceeding $625,500. There are...[Includes one data table]

Ginnie Mae guaranteed a total of $507.46 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities in 2016, its biggest annual volume ever, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. That was up 16.4 percent from the agency’s previous record of $435.80 billion set in 2015. (Those figures include MBS backed by FHA home-equity conversion mortgages, which are not included in the table below or in the rankings on pages 3-5.) In 2016, Ginnie guaranteed $497.03 billion of MBS backed by traditional forward mortgages, also a record, which was up 16.9 percent from the previous year. The biggest factor in last year’s record-setting production was the boom in VA lending, particularly VA refinance loans. Issuers securitized a record $203.03 billion of VA loans last year, up 33.0 percent from the 2015 total. Some 54.3 percent of those loans were refinance transactions. Total VA refi loan ... [4 charts]

Industry stakeholders are anticipating an FHA insurance premium reduction soon from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Sources say a 25-basis-point premium reduction is in the works and HUD Secretary Julian Castro may announce it during his farewell address. His last day in office is Jan. 20, President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration day. A HUD representative declined to comment on the report citing department policy against “commenting on rumors.” A number of lobbyists and consultants said they have heard similar reports but cautioned it is not a done deal. Two industry executives expressed certainty about the veracity of the report. The idea of a premium cut has been raised with neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, Trump’s nominee for HUD secretary, who will have his Senate confirmation hearing on Jan. 12. A mortgage insurance premium reduction at this time would ...

The FHA this year will focus mainly on the completion and implementation of the Defect Taxonomy to help lenders easily identify and categorize loan defects found in FHA-insured loans. At least that was the plan announced by the outgoing Obama administration. The agency urged lenders to be on the lookout for detailed information about Defect Taxonomy and other process improvements in the coming months. “As we begin to implement these changes and transition from current processes, some lenders may experience a temporary decrease in loans selected for review,” the FHA noted in Lender Insight, which updates lenders on the latest rulemakings and policy changes. Announced in June last year, Defect Taxonomy is part of the Blueprint for Access, which embodies three core concepts: identifying a defect, capturing the sources and causes of a defect, and assessing the ...