Scams aimed at stealing homebuyers’ closing funds persist, according to a warning last week from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The warning follows similar notices in recent years from the Federal Trade Commission. “The scammers attempt to steal the homebuyer’s closing funds – for example, their downpayment and closing costs – by sending the homebuyer an email posing as the homebuyer’s real estate agent or settlement agent (title company, escrow officer or attorney),” according to Davida Farrar, counsel in the CFPB’s consumer education and engagement division. In a post on the CFPB’s website, Farrar said...

Mortgage applications last week were down 7.4 percent compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association...

Some 15.2 percent of the mortgages in Chase’s second-quarter MBS were eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises.

In the SEC filing, Annaly reveals that it owns servicing assets through an “ongoing joint venture with a leading sovereign wealth fund.” The SWF was not identified…

However, Congress has already prohibited arbitration agreements in the largest market the agency oversees: residential mortgages.

There's a race on to see who will be the first to deliver a best-in-class lending automation product that the consumer trusts, said consultant Paul Hindman...

Mortgage compliance experts are cautioning FHA servicers to tread carefully around loss mitigation, annual certifications and reverse mortgages, which could be a potential minefield for False Claims Act lawsuits. While FHA lenders’ exposure to FCA risk remains, the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have increased their scrutiny of FHA servicing practices for potential violations, according to Phil Schulman and Krista Cooley, both partners in Mayer Brown’s Washington office. In a recent podcast, Schulman warned of increasing DOJ and HUD scrutiny of FHA servicing practices in the last 18 months, a worrisome shift from the origination side, which has seen an estimated $5 billion in settlements and penalties since 2011 for violations of the FCA and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act. Since 2008, mortgagees participating in ...

According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance, several large nonbanks continue to hire, including Amerihome, Quicken Loans, and United Wholesale Mortgage, among others.

Quiet no longer in non-agency MBS: Credit Suisse...

Ginnie Mae issuers were moderately busier in the second quarter of 2017 than during the first three months of the year, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. Issuers produced $112.71 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the second quarter, including MBS backed by FHA home-equity conversion mortgages. It was a 5.5 percent increase from the previous period and brought year-to-date issuance to $219.51 billion, down 0.7 percent from the first half of 2016. The quarterly uptick in total issuance may not sound like much, but contrasts sharply with production at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which dropped 13.1 percent from the first to the second quarter. Ginnie volume was up because it had a deeper vein of purchase-money mortgages than there was in the government-sponsored enterprise market. Purchase loans accounted for 63.4 percent of ... [Charts]