Millions of disabled post-9/11 veterans may qualify for a VA-guaranteed home mortgage but the majority are not taking advantage of the program, according to a new report from American Financing. The VA loan is great for injured veterans exiting the military but many are either unaware or uninformed, said Greg Vogel, manager of American Financing in Aurora, CO. Active-duty servicemembers and retired military are entitled to VA housing benefits, including an agency guarantee on their mortgage in lieu of mortgage insurance and no downpayment. A first-time VA borrower pays a 2.15 percent funding fee. Borrowers with a service-connected disability are exempt from paying the fee. “You would expect many of our injured warriors would take advantage of this great loan but that’s not what the numbers indicate,” said Vogel, who left the Army as a disabled vet Tim Byers, a mortgage analyst at ...

President Trump Friday morning signaled his intent to nominate former regulator Pamela Patenaude to be the next deputy secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. According to a bio listed on the White House website, Patenaude is president of the J. Ronald Terwilliger Foundation for Housing America’s Families. She also served as HUD assistant secretary for community, planning and development during the George W. Bush administration. Patenaude’ s nomination had been expected for some time. She is expected to play a key role in shaping housing policy in the new administration and brings to the table a depth of knowledge about the industry. HUD Secretary Ben Carson was a career brain surgeon with little in the way of housing and mortgage experience. Meanwhile, industry lobbyists contend the White House continues to vet candidates for two other ...

Production of new first-lien home mortgages fizzled in the first quarter of 2017 as the bottom fell out of the refinance market and home sales slumbered, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. An estimated $385.0 billion of new first-lien mortgages were originated in the first three months of the year, a 33.6 percent downturn from the fourth quarter of 2016. It likely did not mark the end of the world, however. For starters, the fourth quarter of last year surprised on the upside – at $580.0 billion, it was the second-highest quarterly volume in the previous four years. And the start of 2017 was...[Includes two data tables]

The Department of Veterans Affairs is seeking comment on a proposal to ease restrictions on the allowable fees and charges military veterans may pay to obtain a VA home loan – a change that could make VA-backed financing more competitive in home purchases. The VA Loan Guaranty Service wants to hear from stakeholders as to how the agency can protect veterans from incurring excessive closing costs without being overly restrictive. Specifically, the VA is considering ways to revise the list of acceptable fees and charges that are impeding VA borrowers’ ability to compete against bidders using other home-purchase financing options that are not restricted by law or regulation. The VA rule on fees and charges has...

A significant drop in the VA refinance market in the first quarter is proof that Ginnie Mae’s anti-churning policy has been effective in curbing serial refinancing of VA loans, according to agency officials at the recent VA Lenders Conference in Kansas City, MO. A hefty 42.7 percent decline in VA refi volume during the first three months of 2017 reflects an apparently successful effort by Ginnie to stop the practice of refinancing VA loans within six months of closing. By comparison, securitization of VA purchase loans fell 17.3 percent from the fourth quarter. John Getchis, senior vice president at Ginnie, said...

A disproportionate share of the premiums collected under the FHA’s current pricing scheme are paid by non-defaulters even though higher premiums are targeted for higher-risk borrowers, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The study contends that FHA’s policy of allowing borrowers to refinance their upfront mortgage insurance premium “reduces the total cost of borrowing during the first year, but results in non-defaulters paying ...

California remained the mother lode of mortgage insurance business in the first quarter of 2017, but a number of other major states had higher concentrations of insured business, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis. Some $12.50 billion of agency mortgages securitized during the first quarter with some form of primary MI were tied to Golden State properties, representing 58.9 percent of California’s total agency purchase-mortgage ... [Includes one data chart]

The problem with the perceived appraiser shortage is not whether VA has enough appraisers but whether there are enough of them in areas where appraisal demands are greater, according to a ranking member of the VA Fee Panel of the Department of Veterans Affairs. As of April 8, 2017, the Fee Panel had 5,006 licensed and certified appraisers working in the eight regional loan centers (RLC) that administer the VA Home Loan Guaranty program, said Kevin Eason, valuation officer with the Denver RLC. Last year, 553 new appraisers were appointed to the panel, whose members accept VA appraisal assignments on a rotating basis. Speaking last week at the annual VA Lenders Conference in Kansas City, MO, Eason noted...

Many borrowers could have seen significant savings on the interest rate on a mortgage if they shopped around, according to a working paper published by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Office of Research. The bureau economists noted that close to half of consumers didn’t shop before taking out a mortgage, based on the National Survey of Mortgage Originations, a representative survey conducted by the CFPB and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. And only 16.0 percent of borrowers considered three or more lenders before obtaining a mortgage. The economists said...

There is a new boss in the Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities market. PennyMac Financial rose to the top of the issuer ranking in the first quarter of 2017 despite a sharp decline in volume, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. PennyMac issued $10.78 billion of single-family Ginnie securities during the first three months of the year. The figures in this analysis are based on Ginnie loan-level disclosures, which truncate loan amounts to $1,000 increments. PennyMac’s first-quarter production was off 27.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2016, a slightly bigger decline than the 24.8 percent drop in overall Ginnie issuance. Even though the firm fared slightly worse than the total market, its first-quarter downturn was less severe than Wells Fargo’s. Wells has been the top Ginnie producer for a long time, as well as the top player in most segments of the ... [ Charts ]