What is an “egregious” VA mortgage loan? Panelists at last month’s VA Lending Conference in Kansas City, MO, helped shed light on such loans by describing them as flawed and in violation of VA requirements. “But there’s more,” said Greg Nelms, VA chief of loan policy. Unstable income and use of active-duty income when that income will be extinguished within one year could taint a VA loan and make it egregious, said Nelms. High debt-to-income ratio, residual income that is below VA requirements and failure to consider a spouse’s debts or credit in a community-property state also could have an adverse effect on a VA loan, he added. The panel presented several “egregious loan” scenarios involving reviews of several mortgages from 2016 in which lenders were required to sign indemnification agreements. The first example consisted of a VA home loan for $102,047, which closed in ...
The Department of Veterans Affairs’ interim final rule on qualified mortgages (QM) implements the Dodd-Frank provision requiring creditors to make a reasonable and good faith determination that the borrower has a reasonable ability to repay the loan. The VA interim final rule defines QM to mean any loan that the agency guarantees, insures or originates. However, certain limitations apply to VA’s Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loans (IRRRLs) in the rule’s guidance for “safe harbor.” Under the safe harbor requirements for an IRRRL, the loan being refinanced must have been originated at least six months before the new loan’s closing, and six payments must have been made. In addition, the veteran should not have been more than 30 days past due during the six months preceding the new loan’s closing. The QM rule’s six-month seasoning requirement, however, inadvertently created an ...
Appropriation levels for FHA and Ginnie Mae from the previous fiscal year were unchanged in the FY 2017 omnibus spending bill, which President Trump signed into law on May 5. The bill, which passed the House by a 309-118 vote and the Senate by a 79-18 vote on May 4, will fund the federal government through the rest of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2017. Among other things, the bill allocates $400 billion to single-family guarantee commitments under the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, and provides $130 million for administrative contract expenses. In addition, the budget provides an additional $30 million if guaranteed loan commitments exceed $200 billion. The agreement also sets aside up to $30 billion for FHA multifamily and specialized loan guarantees during FY 2017. A total of $55 million was set aside for housing counseling programs, $65.3 million for fair housing activities, and $4 million to ...
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 ...
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...
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.
RSS