The Department of Veterans Affairs has found a defect in “transfer of custody” (TOC) processing, wherein TOC reports are being rejected when submitted to the agency. The reports are not being accepted apparently because servicers are not filling out the “Date of Confirmation/Ratification of Sale” fields, the agency said. Servicers have 15 days after loan termination to report if they want to transfer custody of a foreclosed property to the VA. Loan termination for a foreclosure and loan termination for a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure are defined separately under VA rules. The VA said the defect will be fixed once the agency’s VALERI (VA Loan Electronic Reporting Interface) Manifest 3.4 is released in June. VALERI 3.4 comes in the wake of VALERI 3.3, which the VA deployed on April 11, 2015. The updated version included a revised description of a ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is requiring servicers of FHA-insured mortgages to delay foreclosure for a year and to evaluate all borrowers for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) and other similar loss-mitigation programs. The move is one of the improvements to the FHA Distressed Asset Stabilization Program, a direct-sale pilot program that allows pools of foreclosure-bound mortgages to be sold to qualified bidders. Bidders are encouraged to work with borrowers to help cure the loan – a less costly alternative to foreclosure or an REO (real estate-owned) sale. An FHA servicer can place a troubled loan into a DASP pool if the borrower is at least six months delinquent on their mortgage and the servicer has exhausted all FHA loss-mitigation options. Previously, servicers could foreclose six months after they received the loan. They were also encouraged, though not required, to ...

The reduced capital requirements for certain vintage mortgages under recently issued financial standards for private mortgage insurers might embolden MI companies to step up competition with the FHA, according to a new Barclays Research analysis. Such a move, however, would be bad for private MIs at this time, Barclays analysts warned. Buoyed by the changes in the final Private Mortgage Insurer Eligibility Requirements (PMIERs), MI firms could attempt to steal away market share from FHA by going after the agency’s traditional base, the lower-FICO borrower segment. “Such a move would entail significantly more credit risk, something the MI companies may not be comfortable with just a few years after the recent housing downturn,” said analysts. In addition, analysts estimated that return-on-equity after taxes on the lower FICO cohorts are already below the MI’s targeted ...

VA Clarifies HUD-1 Itemization Requirements. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ Home Loan Guaranty office has issued guidance clarifying HUD-1 documentation and itemization requirements. The HUD-1 is a statement lenders furnish to borrowers at closing showing the actual settlement costs, including amounts paid to and by the settlement agent. The guidance clarifies and establishes VA policy regarding the following: itemization of lender/seller credits in the 200 series of the HUD-1; itemization of line 801 on the HUD-1; clarification that credits reflected on line 803 of the HUD-1 cannot offset allowable fees’ and itemization of line 802 on the HUD-1. Ginnie Mae Announces Update to Securitization of USDA Section 538 Multifamily Loans. Ginnie Mae has enhanced the securitization of rural, multifamily housing loans with a Department of Agriculture guaranty to make affordable housing available to ...

Mortgage lenders originated an estimated $360.0 billion of first-lien home loans during the first three months of 2015, lifting the market to its strongest quarterly volume since the third quarter of 2013, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking. The first-quarter total originations estimate does not include home-equity lending, which many lenders consider a separate business from traditional mortgage lending. In the past, Inside Mortgage Finance included home-equity in total originations, and those market estimates are not being revised. In 2014, about 5.7 percent of total originations ($71.0 billion) were home-equity loans. A number of survey participants have reported...[Includes two data charts]

Quicken Loans said it will be evaluating whether it should continue participating in the FHA single-family mortgage insurance program after the federal government formally accused the lender of improperly originating and underwriting mortgages that cost the FHA losses in paid claims. The Detroit-based mortgage lender two weeks ago took the unprecedented step of filing a lawsuit against the government for alleged harassment in what it deemed a long-running fishing trip to drum up charges against the company. Last week, the empire struck back. The Department of Justice filed...

The new government-sponsored enterprise low-downpayment programs have met a mixed reaction among lenders. While some said they expect to see an uptick in mortgage activity, others noted the product accounts for just a small percentage of their firms’ business and won’t have much of an impact on origination volume. Fannie Mae’s low-downpayment program kicked off in December 2014, and Freddie Mac implemented its program in March 2015. So far, the volume of low-downpayment purchase loans in GSE business is relatively small. Fannie securitized...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency late last week directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to stop charging the 25 basis point “adverse market” fee assessed on all loans since the financial crises, but most lower-risk loans won’t get any reduction in loan-level pricing adjustments. As expected, the FHFA did not make any changes to the “base” guaranty fees charged by the two government-sponsored enterprises. Current fees, on average, are at an “appropriate” level. “We are going to monitor this on an ongoing or quarterly basis and we’ll adjust based on market conditions,” said Sandra Thompson, FHFA’s deputy director. The regulator instructed...

Quicken Loans this week went where no lender in the mortgage industry has gone before: Suing the U.S. government for suggesting it’s been doing a crappy job of originating FHA loans. Its legal action not only caught most of the industry by surprise, but resulted in loud applause from the Mortgage Bankers Association and K&L Gates partner Larry Platt. A number of major lenders have paid...

The outstanding supply of VA home loans in Ginnie Mae pools continued to grow during the first quarter of 2015, climbing 2.9 percent from the end of last year, according to a new Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of loan-level mortgage-backed securities disclosures. Meanwhile, the supply of FHA loans in Ginnie pools fell 0.5 percent during the first quarter. Similarly, FHA loans in Ginnie MBS declined by 2.2 percent from the first quarter of 2014 while VA loans ... [Includes three data charts]