Carrington Mortgage made a big splash this week, unveiling a plan to offer to fund FHA loans for borrowers with credit scores as low as 550, but already some skeptics are openly questioning just how many such loans Carrington – or any company – can produce. Carrington Executive Vice President Ray Brousseau declined to estimate production. The company’s minimum FICO score for FHA loans had been 580. The expanded FHA program will be...[Includes one data chart]

In a recent interview with IMFnews, Carrington Executive Vice President Ray Brousseau stressed that the privately held nonbank will carefully and manually underwrite the loans, which will be sourced through loan brokers.

Addressing CFPB officials at the American Bankers Association’s government relations conference in Washington, one community banker from Oklahoma reported survey findings that one-third of respondents in the state are no longer offering residential mortgages.

Nonbanks had an average of 400 loans per full-time employee in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to Fitch, up from about 300 loans per full time employee in the second half of 2012.

In return, FHFA's pending lawsuits will be dismissed with prejudice and Bank of America and its affiliates will be released from all securities law and fraud claims, as well as certain other claims related to the non-agency RMBS in dispute.

Little else is known about Commerce. The press statement notes that the lender has a “vision of moving forward with a reviving market by offering products backed by a team of professionals with the upmost integrity and knowledge of the industry.”

According to exclusive figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance, almost 85 different lenders made FHA mortgages in 2013 that had FICOs of less than 550.

Bank of America, which is among the 18 original defendants, has not yet settled and faces the largest liability because of its ownership of Countrywide Financial Corp. and Merrill Lynch.

There has been some speculation that DeMarco might want the CSP CEO job, which pays in the range of $400,000. But many sources we talked to doubt it will happen.

The securitized mortgage market appears to be destined to be dominated by mortgages that meet the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s qualified-mortgage standards. Criteria from the rating services gives favorable treatment to QMs, while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are avoiding non-QMs altogether. Fitch Ratings released criteria this week for how it will rate non-agency mortgages in light of the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule and QM standards, rounding out a number of updates from the rating services about how they will handle the issue. The ATR rule took effect for loans with an application date of Jan. 10 or later. So far, no loans subject to the ATR rule have appeared in a jumbo MBS. Issuers have...