With new consumer disclosures from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau set to take effect in August and lenders still grappling with the ability-to-repay rule, due diligence is likely to continue to be a high priority for loans included in jumbo mortgage-backed securities, according to industry participants. Only a handful of jumbo MBS issued in recent years have included third-party due diligence for fewer than 100 percent of the loans. Issuers have been ...

A planned jumbo mortgage-backed security from Credit Suisse received some criticism from Fitch Ratings due to concerns about the origination practices of some of the lenders that contributed mortgages to the deal. The rating service increased its default assumptions for the $405.27 million CSMC 2015-1. “Fitch applied a conservative treatment – higher probability of default – due to its limited visibility to the individual lender origination practices ...

The FHA has delayed the effective date of new guidance that will require reverse mortgage lenders to perform a financial assessment of applicants for a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage. The FHA indicated that the change was necessary to allow vendors and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to align their respective software before the new system can be operational. Those familiar with the technology said delivering the required system enhancements should not take long. The FHA said a new effective date should be expected within 30 to 60 days of the original March 2 effective date. It will be announced in a new mortgagee letter, the agency added. The new guidance requires lenders to evaluate HECM borrowers’ willingness and capacity to meet their obligations and to comply with program requirements. “Financial assessment” means doing a much more ...

FHA lenders should spend the next couple of months familiarizing their staff with the requirements in the FHA’s new Single Family Housing Policy Handbook to ensure proper implementation of the changes on June 15, 2015, according to compliance experts. The impending changes in the Single Family Handbook are complex and significant. Lenders will need proper legal guidance to navigate and understand hundreds of pages of consolidated housing policies and guidance, as well as substantive changes to FHA requirements, said K&L Gates experts in a recent analysis. The handbook is a consolidated, authoritative source of single-family housing policy and is meant as a one-stop resource for FHA lenders. It gathers and streamlines all FHA requirements, which are currently spread throughout various handbooks, mortgagee letters and other documents, making it easier for lenders to ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently sued a reverse mortgage lender and issued consent decrees against two other mortgage companies for misleading consumers with false advertising about FHA-insured mortgage products. The CFPB filed suit against All Financial Services (AFS), a Maryland-based reverse mortgage lender, in the federal district court in Baltimore alleging that the lender disseminated misleading ads for Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans between November 2011 and December 2012. In addition, AFS allegedly failed to maintain copies of the ads as required by the CFPB under its reverse mortgage regulations. According to court filings, the CFPB alleges that the lender/broker mailed out ads using materials and language that seemed to indicate that it was a federal entity or an affiliate of a government entity. All AFS ads appeared as if they were ...

Ginnie Mae servicing volume gained a mere percentage point in the fourth quarter of 2014 from the previous quarter, capping a productive year for servicers of government-backed mortgages, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of agency data. Servicing volume rose by only 1.0 percent to $1.5 trillion during the last three months of 2014 from $1.4 trillion in unpaid principal balance in the first quarter, and increased 4.0 percent year over year. Four out of the top five Ginnie Mae servicers were banks, of which three experienced declines in their servicing portfolios on quarterly and year-over-year bases. The leader of the pack, Wells Fargo, closed out the year with $416.0 billion in Ginnie Mae servicing and capturing 27.8 percent of the market. Its servicing portfolio fell ... [ 1 chart ]

It’s no secret that the securitization market for jumbo loans has been anemic since the housing bust of 2008, but is mortgage insurance a possible panacea? Arch MI recently set up a new subsidiary that will write coverage on jumbo loans as well as portfolio products. In its press statement, Arch said it created Arch Mortgage Guaranty Co. in part to aid lenders that want to securitize. In a recent interview with Inside MBS & ABS, Arch MI President David Gansberg said...

Proponents of the non-agency MBS market continue to work on initiatives to revive the market, with progress somewhat slow but steady. The Treasury Department and the Structured Finance Industry Group are facilitating separate efforts to entice investors to buy new non-agency MBS. At the ABS Vegas conference sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network this week, Olga Gorodetsky, a senior policy advisor at the Treasury, said there’s no timeframe for when the benchmark non-agency MBS the Treasury is trying to facilitate might be issued. “It will be market driven,” she said. Gorodetsky said...[Includes one data chart]

The two best things about the mortgage origination market in the fourth quarter were that it meant 2014 wasn’t as bad as once feared, and that refinance demand had picked up. But a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking reveals two other positive trends: the jumbo and home-equity markets continued to gain strength in the final three months of 2014. Lenders originated an estimated $67 billion of jumbo mortgages during the fourth quarter, up 3.1 percent from the previous period. Home-equity production bounced 5.0 percent higher, to an estimated $21 billion. Neither gain was...[Includes two data charts]

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro faced the wrath of the GOP majority during a House Financial Services Committee hearing this week on the state of the FHA, focusing on the agency’s recent decision to cut annual mortgage insurance premiums. While Castro may have been warned about stepping into the lion’s den, he appeared ill-prepared for the confrontation with Republicans, unable to answer basic questions such as FHA’s net income, overall delinquency rate and the serious delinquency rate for 2014. Democrats, on the other hand, helped the embattled secretary regain his footing by expressing support for FHA’s efforts and putting perspective on some of FHA’s actions to strengthen the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund and help qualify more borrowers for FHA credit. Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, set...