With only days to go before the implementation of its new Loan Review System, the FHA is encouraging lenders to take a few more steps to ensure smooth transition to the new system. The LRS will go live on May 15, 2017, as the new electronic platform for FHA’s Title II single-family, quality-control processes. Lenders will use the LRS to interact with FHA during post-endorsement loan reviews, direct endorsement authority test cases, lender monitoring reviews and lender self-reporting of fraud and other material findings. Findings will be communicated through the system’s defect taxonomy, which provides a streamlined method of identifying and capturing information about defects uncovered during individual loan reviews. In its latest guidance, the FHA instructs lenders to check access to FHA Connection for any potential glitches. All users access the LRS through FHA Connection via the ...

Overall, Arch MI wrote coverage on $12.66 billion of home mortgages in the first quarter, of which 81.9 percent were monthly premium policies…

The MSR market is in a good place now, said MountainView’s David Bennett.

PHH Mortgage, Walter Investment Management Corp. and Ocwen Financial these days are all working from the same survival playbook: sell their most valuable asset – mortgage servicing rights – and remain as the subservicer of record. The idea is simple. All three hope to raise cash by selling MSR assets, eliminate the need to hold large sums for servicing advances and – importantly – buy some time. There’s...

Federal Housing Finance Director Mel Watt this week expressed strong reluctance to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be forced to take another draw on their Treasury line of credit. “FHFA has explicit statutory obligations to ensure that each enterprise ‘operates in a safe and sound manner’ and fosters ‘liquid, efficient, competitive and resilient national housing finance markets,’” Watt testified in a hearing at the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Development Committee. “To ensure that we meet these obligations, we cannot risk...

Watt’s comments on building capital did not move the share price of Fannie/Freddie common very much...

At March 31, Ditech serviced 1.9 million accounts, with an unpaid principal balance of $220.2 billion. During the quarter, the company suffered a net disappearance rate of 13.56 on its MSR portfolio.

Impac Mortgage is making major run at the non-QM market, advertising its products on cable TV…

Glen Messina is slated to step down as CEO in June. He has served as CEO since January 2012.

For GSE-eligible mortgages, 12.9 percent of the banks surveyed loosened their underwriting standards compared to the previous quarter…