The federal statute that authorized the Department of Housing and Urban Development to establish the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program addresses only HUD’s authority to insure reverse mortgages and not the lender’s contractual right to foreclose, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has ruled. Affirming the district court’s decision in The Estate of Caldwell Jones, Jr., Executrix Vanessa Jones and Leah Grace Jones, Minor v. Live Well Financial Inc., the circuit court determined that the HECM statute did not prevent foreclosure pursuant to a reverse-mortgage contract originated before Aug. 4, 2014, even if the non-borrowing spouse continued to live in the mortgaged property. The question before the court was whether the statute can be read broadly to prevent foreclosure after the borrower’s death and prevent the non-borrowing spouse from being ejected from the ...

EquiFi plans to license its shared equity product to other originators…

The major driver was a 16.8 percent jump in Fannie Mae issuance…

In the New Rez deal, the mortgage have seasoned for more than 13 years, on average…

Issuance of expanded-credit MBS is booming but total volume remains relatively small as major investors continue to avoid the sector. Investors such as Blackrock and PIMCO are looking for improvements to representations and warranties, according to industry participants. Eric Kaplan, director of the housing finance program at the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets, said some big investors prefer to acquire expanded-credit loans, such as non-qualified mortgages, as whole loans ...

A number of investors noted that it’s difficult to find structured-finance products with attractive yields.

Expanded-credit mortgages accounted for less than 3 percent of total first-lien originations in the first half of this year.

But there’s a catch: the portfolio has a delinquency rate of 11.5 percent and foreclosures of 1.5 percent.

Strong growth in originations of non-qualified mortgages in recent years has helped the sector gain market share. Lenders in the non-QM market suggest that originations are set to continue to increase, with a 10 percent share of total originations seen as a reasonable goal.

If current trends hold in the official barometer used for adjusting conforming loan limits, look for the baseline limit to go up about 8 percent next year.