The Department of Veterans Affairs and the FHA have issued guidelines concerning the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule as it relates to VA- and FHA-backed mortgages. The new TRID rule covers loan applications received on or after Oct. 3, 2015. It replaced Truth-in-Lending-Act disclosures and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s closing (HUD-1) settlement statement. The rule requires that all covered loans be closed using the new closing disclosure. The VA has announced new closing-disclosure guidelines and a new mandatory method for the stacking order of loan files selected for full-loan review. According to the VA, all files selected for full review on or after Oct. 3 may include the HUD-1 statement. The agency is aware that loans will be requested that have the HUD-1 closing document, and that it will perform the full file review with the ...
A trade association representing large financial institutions has asked the FHA to clarify its policy regarding the use of downpayment assistance programs on home purchases financed with FHA mortgage loans. The differences in the interpretation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general and the FHA of downpayment assistance programs (DAP), especially by state housing finance agencies, has created uncertainty among lenders, according to the Consumer Mortgage Coalition. In a letter to HUD Secretary Julian Castro, the CMC expressed concern that lenders may become unwilling to continue offering loans with assisted financing because of legal uncertainty. “This would be unfortunate for moderate-income borrowers nationwide, and it would unnecessarily limit the ability of [state housing finance agencies] to function,” the group said. SHFAs do not rely on taxpayer funding for ...
First Mortgage Corp., Ontario, CA, this month completed its liquidation, selling its branch network and $6 billion of servicing rights to other firms, and winding down a 44-year-old business that catered to FHA borrowers with lower credit scores. Jean Ziroli-Kobielsky, a recruiter for the family-owned business, noted that it wasn’t fear of regulatory oversight that prompted her father and brother to sell FMC, it was technology: “Some of our technology systems were still using DOS,” she told Inside Mortgage Finance. (DOS, or disk operating system, was the precursor to the Microsoft Windows software line for PCs.) She said...
The younger generation appears ready to take the plunge into the housing market, but finding an affordable home and gaining access to credit remain the top challenges, especially when it comes to African-Americans and Latinos, according to some experts. Mark Fleming, chief economist with First American, sponsor of a housing forum on Capitol Hill this week, said the way mortgage credit is formulated today doesn’t necessarily fit the type of ethnically diverse, millennial borrower of the future. “Ethnically diverse communities tend...