The FHA has updated the contents of a notice to delinquent borrowers regarding the availability of approved housing counseling and provided a new template for lenders to explain, in simple terms, the benefits of housing counseling. The latest guidance, Revised Notification to Homeowners of Availability of Housing Counseling Services (Mortgagee Letter 2015-04), also provides a description of counseling services to delinquent borrowers. The revised requirements supplement those outlined in previous mortgagee letters and certain provisions in the HUD handbook. Lenders must comply with the new requirements by April 4, 2015. FHA lenders must provide delinquent borrowers with a notice about the availability of housing counseling by an approved provider and the principal mortgage lender. However, there is no standard language for such notices Hence, the FHA has ...

Among the top 10 residential servicers, just three firms managed to grow their receivables from the third to fourth quarter: Quicken, Walter and U.S. Bank Home.

Although depository institutions continued to account for the lion’s share of the mortgage servicing market, nonbank servicers continued to gain ground in late 2014, according to a new market analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. Banks, thrifts and credit unions accounted for 71.8 percent of the $7.351 trillion of home mortgages serviced by the 50 largest players in the market as of the end of last year. Nonbank servicers accounted for 28.2 percent of the group total, up from 25.9 percent at the end of 2013. That’s...[Includes two data charts]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is once again asking for authority to charge lenders an administrative support fee to fund information technology upgrades and administrative functions at the FHA, a bid that was shot down by Congress last year. As part of the Obama administration’s fiscal 2016 budget proposal, HUD wants to charge lenders up to $30 million in fees, which would be credited as offsetting collections to the FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance program account. The mortgage industry cautioned...

The firm noted that employment and income fraud peaked in the fourth quarter of 2013 and has declined ever since.

In some cases, loan officers who work for net branch operators can earn 225 to 250 bps per deal.

DocMagic would like to double its nationwide sales staff to 20 by the time 2015 ends.

For the year, the 20 banks earned $3.090 billion from mortgage banking, down 30.5 percent from their income in 2013.

University is based in Hackensack and the purchase gets FFC into the Northern New Jersey market.

Global strategist Peter Schiff, who predicted the housing bust of 2007, sees danger ahead in the U.S. housing market.