The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General has alerted the FHA of significant potential losses because a California-based direct endorsement lender allowed certain FHA-insured loans with prohibited restrictive covenants to be recorded. An OIG audit of 84 FHA-insured loans underwritten by Standard Pacific Mortgage of Irvine, CA, found 28 loans with unallowable restrictive covenants that were recorded in certain Florida and Arizona county registers. The loans were closed between Jan. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2011, the OIG said. Of the 28 loans, 15 resulted in ...
NCOA Booklet Required Reading for HECM Borrowers. The National Council on Aging has announced the availability of the 2013 version of “Use Your Home to Stay at Home,”, the official reverse mortgage booklet approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The booklet is designed to help older homeowners understands the pros and cons of a reverse mortgage. Federal law requires that all individuals who are considering a reverse mortgage go through pre-counseling by a HUD-approved counseling agency and receive a copy of the NCOA guide. The NCOA also offers other ...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued to wrangle with mortgage sellers over repurchase requests during the fourth quarter of 2012, mostly over loans originated five years earlier, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of disclosures by the two government-sponsored enterprises. As the year ended, the GSEs had a whopping $20.11 billion in pending and disputed buyback requests with lenders, up 9.5 percent from the end of the third quarter. While Freddie actually managed to whittle down its stack of unresolved cases by 1.1 percent, the pile grew 10.5 percent higher at Fannie. And 52.1 percent of these disputes involved loans securitized in 2007. The dollar volume of loan repurchases and indemnifications edged...[Includes one data chart]
Although it’s well known that mortgage bankers earned record profits on loan production and secondary marketing last year, a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends reveals that mortgage servicing was also highly profitable for the industry’s top lenders. A diverse group of 10 top lenders reported a whopping $16.98 billion in net income from mortgage production and secondary marketing last year, after posting a combined loss of $5.79 billion in 2011. Massive repurchase expenses reported by ... [Includes one data chart]
It was thought that after the financial shellacking it took by purchasing GMAC Mortgage, that hedge fund giant Cerberus might avoid the residential finance industry entirely. But perish the thought. Cerberus this month filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering for Cerberus Mortgage Capital, a real estate investment trust that hopes to raise at least $150 million. Its goal: to use the money to buy a “broad range” of residential-related assets including ...
Real estate investment trusts focused on investing in agency mortgage-backed securities were called out last week by Federal Reserve Governor Jeremy Stein. Industry participants acknowledge the Fed’s concerns and suggest that agency REIT investment strategies will naturally shift as yields on the products have declined, among other factors. Stein warned of “overheating” markets and pointed to agency-focused mortgage REITs. “When I say that the market for a particular class of credit instruments ...
Low interest rates and improving fundamentals in the nation’s housing market appear to be driving renewed investor interest in residential mortgage loan participations, according to a market participant. Jim Cutillo, chief executive officer of Stonegate Mortgage, said the market for loan participations has grown so strong in the last few months that banks – Wall Street financial institutions as well as small and regional banks – are pursuing investment opportunities in the sector. “I think a lot ...
The ink is hardly dry on the final residential servicing regulations promulgated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but mortgage bankers are already worrying about meeting the implementation date, which is less than 11 months away. But there is some good news. According to panelists speaking during an Inside Mortgage Finance webinar this week, it’s likely that the agency will extend the deadline beyond January 2014. Larry Platt, of K&L Gates, and Michael Waldron, of Ballard Spahr ...
Officials in the financial services sector are making a fresh push to alert the mortgage and residential mortgage-backed securities industries to the potential pitfalls that delinquent homeowner association accounts pose for them. “The securitization industry has little understanding” of homeowner and other types of community associations, collectively referred to as HOAs, said Jason Serrano, co-head of structured products and managing director for securities at Oak Hill Advisors ...
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