Wells Fargo was hit with fines totaling $185.0 million this week for secretly opening unauthorized accounts for customers at the bank. Regulators said the bank’s incentives for cross-selling financial products pushed employees at Wells to open unwanted deposit and credit card accounts for customers of the bank. The fines were imposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ($100.0 million, the largest penalty ever imposed by the CFPB), the city and county of Los Angeles ...

VA refinance mortgages accounted for the biggest share of total insured refis during the first six months of 2016, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of agency refi data. On a monthly basis, VA refi totals exceeded refis with FHA and private mortgage insurance, peaking at $9.3 billion (58.1 percent of total VA originations) in April. Over the six-month period, the refi share of VA loans securitized by Ginnie Mae averaged 52.3 percent, compared to 29.6 percent for FHA and 21.0 percent for private MI loans securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In terms of total volume, however, FHA held a commanding lead, $123.0 billion, over private MIs ($102.7 billion) and VA ($84.8 billion). Interestingly, the average interest rate on VA refi loans, 3.6 percent, over the six-month period was lower than FHA’s and private MIs’ note rates of 3.9 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively. There is no clear ... [1 chart]

Ginnie Mae issued $46.5 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities in August, up slightly from July, according to an analysis of Ginnie data. Single-family MBS monthly issuance in August was the highest monthly volume so far this year. Total issuance also was up 12.3 percent from the same month last year., Strong purchase and refinance originations in the second quarter helped push production in the third quarter. Although purchase loans with private mortgage insurance outpaced gains in FHA and VA loans in the second quarter, deliveries to Ginnie so far appear to indicate a strong third quarter. Meanwhile, VA volume has been fueled largely by refinance activity over the past few years and does not appear to be letting up. PennyMac and Freedom Mortgage battled for first place with $4.35 billion and $4.34 billion, respectively, in MBS issuance in August. Despite cutting back on its ... [1 chart]

Homebuyers in two housing markets encompassing 13 states relied more on FHA and VA than other types financing, according to a new industry study of new single-family homes started in 2015. A study by the National Association of Home Builders found, among other things, that government-backed purchase lending and other forms of non-conventional mortgage financing remained elevated in 2015. For example, homebuyers in the South Atlantic and West South Central regions favored FHA and VA loans over other types of home-purchase financing. States in the South Atlantic region include Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. Washington, DC, is also in this region. West South Central states are comprised of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. Together, the two regions accounted for more than 26 percent and 21 percent of the ...

Issuers delivered $8.1 billion of rural mortgage loans with a U.S. Department of Agriculture guarantee into Ginnie Mae pools during the first six months of 2016, according to an analysis of Ginnie data. Securitized USDA mortgages accounted for 1.3 percent percent of total MBS issued by Ginnie Mae during the period and comprised 2.5 percent of total loans originated during the six-month period. USDA-backed loan deliveries to Ginnie Mae in the second quarter rose 9.8 percent from the previous period. Year-over-year, issuance of MBS backed by rural loans fell 3.8 percent. USDA-backed mortgages require no downpayment. Over the first six months, the average credit score for rural borrowers was 688.1 and the average debt-to-income ratio was 34.9 percent. An estimated 93.2 percent of USDA loans originated during the period were purchase mortgages, 1.0 percent were refinances and the ... [ 2 charts ]

A California FHA lender could face monetary penalties totaling $242,828 for deficient mortgage underwriting and exposing the FHA insurance fund to increased risk of loss and fraud. A Department of Housing and Urban Development inspector general’s audit of Sun West Mortgage Co. of Cerritos, CA, also alleged unauthorized use of foreign staff in another country to “pre-underwrite” FHA loans. The audit was triggered by a complaint the IG Office received in November last year alleging that Sun West, an approved FHA lender since 1980, was not underwriting FHA loans properly. In addition, the complaint alleged that Sun West was having the loans pre-underwritten by a company in another country, in violation of HUD rules. Neither the company nor the country was identified in the audit report. The complaint further alleged that employees at Sun West shared user identification numbers for ...

-The average credit score for purchase mortgages securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae during the second quarter was 722.8, down a few points from the first quarter.

UI’s Laurie Goodman said borrowers who took out mortgages in the past five years are better at paying their mortgages than any other group of mortgage borrowers in history.

In the fourth quarter of last year, Walter/Ditech made a decision to exit the consumer retail channel, selling branches where possible and laying off staff.

Mortgage warehouse providers ended the second quarter with $55.0 billion of commitments on their books, a 10.0 percent sequential improvement in a red-hot origination market, according to survey figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance. Compared to the same period a year earlier, commitment volumes were up 12.2 percent. But the real story was in lines drawn and “average outstandings,” which rose substantially. At Southwest Bank, for example, its commitment level increased...[Includes one data table]