“The industry seems to be cut out of some of the development of the securitization platform,” said Rep. Scott Garrett, R-NJ...

"Contrary to the fable told by the left, the root cause of the financial crisis was not deregulation but dumb regulation," said House Financial Services Committee chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX.

The FHFA is still evaluating input regarding g-fees and but Watt has no idea if they will be reduced, increased or kept at their current levels.

Thanks to its settlement with California regulators, Ocwen's share price is on the rise. But for how long?

Declining interest rates don't appear to have affected the servicing auction market much.

Ocwen denied that there is any basis for a default under the trust agreements...

Sterne Agee estimates that such settlements could cost the nation’s fourth largest servicer $496 million.

Ginnie Mae Allows Rate-Change Dates in HMBS Annual ARM Pools. Ginnie Mae has decided to permit annual adjustable-rate Home Equity Conversion Mortgage pools to contain participations with different interest-rate adjustment dates. The participations in a pool must have the same adjustment date as the individual HECM loans to which they are related and an interest rate that adjusts on annual basis. In addition, participations must have a rate adjustment that will take place within 12 months following the month of pool issuance. This policy change is effective with Jan. 1, 2015, issuances and, thereafter, for both Constant Maturity Treasury and LIBOR index-based loan pools. Rescission Dates for Electronic Signatures/VA Guaranteed Home Loans, SCRA Requirements Extended. The Department of Veterans Affairs has extended the rescission date for ...

Ginnie Mae will soon introduce the third prong of a strategy to improve its oversight of participants in its mortgage-backed securities program – a performance scorecard for issuers – and monitoring of its risk. Essentially a “scorecard,” the Issuer Operational Performance Profile (IOPP) will enable issuers to better understand and comply with Ginnie Mae’s expectations. It also provides a way for issuers to measure and improve their performance and compare it to the performance of their peers. Final testing and training for IOPP began this winter, with deployment expected “in early 2015,” the agency said. Issuers will be scored monthly based on a series of metrics. Each issuer will be rated against its peers by applying a weighting algorithm and, in some cases, adjusting for certain control factors. Each issuer will receive two scores: one for operational management and ...

Production of loans with a VA guaranty was moderately strong in the third quarter of 2014, thanks to lower rates and increased demand for the no-downpayment loans, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of the latest agency data. A 14.1 percent quarter-to-quarter surge helped the industry end last year’s first nine months with a total of $76.3 billion in VA loans, mostly purchase home mortgages taken out by a younger generation of war veterans. VA streamline refinancing also accounted for a substantial chunk of originations, 19.2 percent. Volume jumped from $19.5 billion in the first quarter of 2014 to $26.5 billion the following quarter. Lenders closed out the third quarter with $30.2 billion. Stanley Middleman, chief executive officer of Freedom Mortgage, said VA lending is on the upswing, driven by low interest rates. He thinks the VA home loan guaranty program has been ... [ 1 chart ]