Thirty-three FHA lenders were sanctioned and 32 others lost their FHA approval between October and December 2013 because of actions taken by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Mortgagee Review Board. The board also imposed $516,500 in civil money penalties and entered into one settlement agreement to bring an unidentified lender into compliance. During the three-month period, one lender entered into an indemnification agreement with the MRB over one FHA-insured single-family loan. FHA lenders were subject to MRB disciplinary actions for various reasons, including failing to establish and implement a servicing quality control plan and failing to perform loss mitigation as required by the agency. Actions were also taken against lenders for failing to conduct monthly reviews of delinquent loans to determine the type of loss mitigation needed, as well as for failing to repay HUD losses in connection with indemnification agreements. Noncompliance with HUD’s annual recertification requirements also resulted in ...
Old Republic Cancels Recapitalization Plan for its Mortgage Guaranty Subsidiaries. Old Republic International Corp. has withdrawn plans to secure capital market funding for its beleaguered consumer credit indemnity and mortgage guaranty subsidiaries for lack of investor interest. Both business segments are housed within the Republic Financial Indemnity Group and have been in a run-off mode since 2008 and 2011, respectively. ORI Chairman/CEO Al Zucaro said holding company funds would be used to shore up the regulatory capital of the mortgage guaranty subsidiaries. The completion of the recapitalization plan hinged on regulatory approvals in North Carolina, Florida and Vermont, as well as from the government-sponsored enterprises and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. ORI said that with all the complications, it could not be certain of getting the necessary approvals. A primary investor concern is that new capital would be used to pay for RMIC’s legacy problems, and investors want their money to ...
In general, newly-created mortgage servicing rights are being valued at 4 to 4.5 times the servicing fee, which has become the industry norm of late, but there’s a school of thought that says lenders are being a bit too conservative in their “marks.” “Whether your company is public or private you have to be within [generally accepted accounting principles] on these valuations,” said Ken Richey, managing partner in Richey & Co., an accounting and advisory firm based in Englewood, CO. “GAAP dictates that you have to book it at fair value. But what’s fair value?” On a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loan, 4 times the servicing fees translates...
The top three HEL lenders in the market – Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Chase – originated a combined $17.8 billion in home-equity loans last year, but they still saw a $32.1 billion decline in their total holdings of HELOCs and closed-end seconds.
The extended time on market for short sales does not appear to be due to a lack of demand, as short sales completed in February averaged 3.1 offers, based on a three-month moving average.
In a recent interview with IMFnews, Carrington Executive Vice President Ray Brousseau stressed that the privately held nonbank will carefully and manually underwrite the loans, which will be sourced through loan brokers.
Addressing CFPB officials at the American Bankers Association’s government relations conference in Washington, one community banker from Oklahoma reported survey findings that one-third of respondents in the state are no longer offering residential mortgages.
Nonbanks had an average of 400 loans per full-time employee in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to Fitch, up from about 300 loans per full time employee in the second half of 2012.
Fannie and Freddie issued $44.6 billion of single-family MBS in February, a 5.1 percent decline from January and a stunning 62.0 percent drop for the first two months of 2014 when compared to the same period in 2013.