Mortgage brokers have made a comeback and a number of new buyers have stepped into the correspondent market – with the common theme of a stronger focus on loan quality. Wholesale lenders have become more selective, said Matthew Young, a senior vice president at Genworth Mortgage Insurance, during a panel session at the Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention in Chicago last week. Buyer attitudes in the correspondent market have been shaped by the risk of mortgage buybacks, which have led to ...

It looks like many banks may have been too distracted with loan modifications, foreclosures and regulatory compliance issues over the last few years to notice a potentially vast untapped well of profit in their own back yards. A new consumer mortgage study finds that banks are passing by an opportunity to increase their mortgage business by a whopping 79 percent with their existing customer base. “Thirty-nine percent of survey respondents have their mortgage with their primary bank, the bank with which they do ...

Regulations arising from the Dodd-Frank Act and Basel III capital standards would result in fewer mortgage loans made, tighter lending standards, reduced home sales, fewer jobs and slower economic growth, warned a new study from the American Action Forum, a policy think tank in Washington, DC. In particular, the AAF said that taken as a whole, the finalized rules on qualified mortgages and qualified residential mortgages,as well as Basel provisions requiring banks to hold more capital for certain risk-weighted ...

Independent mortgage companies could lose access to warehouse funding or at least face significantly higher costs if Basel III capital requirements are implemented as proposed, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The capital requirements proposed by federal regulators would change the definition of “financial collateral” included in proposed standardized approach rules by excluding conforming residential mortgages. “This change would significantly reduce the amount of funding available to non-depository mortgage bankers since the warehouse lines ...

Valuations of mortgage servicing rights could take a severe beating if scores of banks dump MSRs to avoid costly new capital requirements under rules to implement controversial international guidelines that have been proposed by U.S. banking regulators. Proposals to implement the Basel III capital rules for U.S. banks would be a game-changer for the mortgage industry, said David Motley, president of Colonial National Mortgage, during a panel session at the Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention last week. As proposed, the Basel III rules “would restrict our ability to grow and may cause us to shrink,” he said. The complex set of Basel III proposals would affect...

Competing special servicers Ocwen Financial and Walter Investment Management worked together this week to outbid Nationstar Mortgage to acquire Residential Capital’s mortgage servicing rights and origination platform at a bankruptcy auction. And Berkshire Hathaway won a separate auction for ResCap’s whole-loan portfolio. After approval by the bankruptcy court, Ocwen would handle 86.5 percent of the $374.0 billion ResCap MSRs with Walter acquiring $50.4 billion in Fannie Mae MSRs along with ResCap’s ...

FHA loan originations, driven largely by streamline refinancing, increased 5.3 percent to $60.9 billion in the third quarter of this year, the highest level it has been in almost two years, according to Inside FHA Lending’s latest analysis of FHA data. The third-quarter volume reflected an upward trend that began in the first quarter with nearly $48.5 billion in total FHA single-family production and which later rose to $57.8 billion in the second quarter. The last highest point in FHA production was in the fourth quarter of 2010 when ... (2 charts)

New pool level data issued by Ginnie Mae reveal a rising share of FHA-insured loans that have refinanced with grandfathered mortgage insurance premiums (MIP) in new Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities issuances, according to analysts. Of particular interest to investors is the share of borrowers with existing FHA-insured home loans who took advantage of an opportunity to refinance on advantageous terms under the FHA Streamline Refinance program, said analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Under the revised rules of the FHA Streamline Refi program, FHA-insured mortgages endorsed before June 1, 2009, were ...

A weakened mortgage revenue bond market and the unreliability of its primary and pool credit enhancement structure has prompted the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Agency to turn to FHA and Ginnie Mae to finance its affordable housing program. Launched in December last year, WHEDA’s $100 million FHA Advantage program is still in its infancy, generating less than $1 million a month. Although marketing has not been aggressive as it should be, Geoff Cooper, WHEDA director of single-family operations, said the housing finance agency will soon announce ...

A nonsupervised Arizona FHA lender whose high default and claims rate triggered a supervisory audit earlier found itself in a deeper mess for improper underwriting on a number of FHA streamline refinanced loans that resulted in losses to the FHA insurance fund. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Inspector General found that Allen Mortgage of Centennial Park, AZ, violated HUD’s regulations , procedures, and instructions in the underwriting of FHA-insured loans. Specifically, of the 73 streamlined refinance mortgage loans reviewed by the IG, 23 were ...