The reverse-mortgage industry is in an uncomfortable place in the first quarter of 2018 due to lower volumes, higher costs and lower margins – the same issues that ail the traditional forward-lending business currently, says a new analysis by the Stratmor Group. Applications and counseling requests are down more than expected for this time of the year despite the recent rule changes implemented by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to ensure the long-term viability of the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program. Stratmor projects HECM volume at $1.6 billion in 2018, down from approximately $2.0 billion in 2017, due mainly to dwindling refinances. “Given the reduction in the interest-rate floor, it is reasonable to expect that gain-on-sale margins will decline, but just how far, who knows,” said Jim Cameron, a senior partner at Stratmor. “The reduction in unit ...

Banks and thrifts increased their first-lien holdings by 4.1 percent in 2017, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Big banks continue to retain jumbo mortgages in portfolio along with some loans eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises. A total of $2.01 trillion in first-lien mortgages were held by banks and thrifts as of the end of 2017, up 1.2 percent from the end of September. Adjustable-rate mortgages ... [Includes one data chart]

Issuance of non-agency mortgage-backed securities backed by non-qualified mortgages could triple this year, according to Jeremy Schneider, a senior director at S&P Global Ratings. According to Inside Nonconforming Markets, $4.08 billion of expanded credit non-agency MBS was issued in 2017, with non-QMs accounting for a large share of the issuance. Schneider and other industry participants discussed non-QMs at the SFIG Vegas conference produced by Information ...

Issuance of jumbo mortgage-backed securities flourished at the start of the year, prompting projections that volume could double compared with 2017, but the market isn’t expected to grow to anywhere near pre-crisis levels. Baron Silverstein, a managing director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said he expects to see more issuers enter the maket and that issuance could hit $20.0 billion this year. He was speaking at the SFIG Vegas conference produced by Information Management Network and ...

After issuing two jumbo mortgage-backed securities in 2017 on a shelf created by Credit Suisse, an affiliate of AIG Asset Management is launching a deal on its own. Pearl Street Mortgage Company 2018-1 looks a lot like previous AIG deals save for the change in shelf registration. However, the planned $446.17 million issuance will have somewhat higher credit enhancement on the senior tranche than the other MBS. The new issuance received preliminary AAA ratings from Fitch Ratings and ...

With comprehensive housing-finance reform looking unlikely to be passed by Congress anytime soon, some industry analysts project that the Trump administration will take administrative actions to shrink the roles of the government-sponsored enterprises. Under a plan detailed last week by the American Enterprise Institute, the GSEs could be eliminated over time without legislation, with the non-agency market filling the void. The “Taxpayer Protection Housing Finance Plan” was ...

Jumbo mortgage lending – including agency-eligible mortgages that exceed normal loan limits – lost some market share in 2017, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis.

FHA and VA single-family originations fell in the fourth quarter of 2017 due to a decline in purchase mortgage originations that was offset somewhat by an increase in refinance business. FHA endorsed $237.3 billion in forward single-family mortgages in 2017 notwithstanding an 11.9 percent drop in the fourth quarter. FHA production also dropped 7.1 percent year-over-year. Market observers attributed the decline in FHA originations to high mortgage insurance premiums, stiffer competition from private lenders’ low-downpayment programs, and a more aggressive conventional-conforming mortgage market. A new analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance also found that government-backed lending and the jumbo market saw the biggest production declines from the prior quarter. In particular, IMF’s research found that FHA, VA and U.S. Department of Agriculture rural-housing originations fell ... [Charts]

Approximately 19 percent of mortgage-related complaints filed by senior citizens with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the last two years involved FHA forward and reverse mortgages and VA loans, according to the CFPB complaints database. The bureau received 8,323 complaints from the elderly between 2016 and 2017 regarding their experiences with FHA, VA, and Home Equity Conversion Mortgages, home-equity loans or lines of credit, conventional mortgages and other home-loan products. Over the two-year period, seniors reported 1,562 problems with their FHA mortgages (702 complaints), reverse mortgages/HECMs (488) and VA-guaranteed loans (372). Conventional mortgages received the highest number of senior citizen complaints (4,240) during the period, while home-equity loan products and other mortgages garnered 780 and 1,741 complaints, respectively. Total complaints overall began trending downward in the first quarter of 2017, from 1,241 to 508 in the ... [Chart]

A greater focus on reverse-mortgage servicing and loss mitigation would be effective in addressing property-charge foreclosures while also preserving the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program’s core mission of helping cash-strapped senior citizens, says a new study from the National Consumer Law Center. The study by staff attorney Odette Williamson and Sarah Mancini, of counsel to the NCLC, said the government’s mistaken response to surging insurance claims and increasing defaults on property tax and insurance obligations was to change origination policies. Specifically, the Department of Housing and Urban Development reduced the proceeds available through a reverse mortgage and imposed new underwriting guidelines to curb rising reverse-mortgage foreclosures and stem increased losses to the FHA insurance fund. Although the repercussions of the two distinct problems related to ...