Homeownership among young adults under age 35 has dropped substantially, particularly among prime first-time homebuyers, despite the fact that owning a house has become less costly than renting in recent years, according to a Fannie Mae analysis. Specifically, the government-sponsored enterprise found that the homeownership rate of “prime” first-time homebuyers – defined as educated, married couples in their early 30s with kids and lots of money – fell by 8.6 percent between 2006 and 2012 ...
Banks and thrifts reported an 11.0 percent decline in the volume of mortgage repurchases and indemnifications they made during the second quarter of 2014, compared to the first three months of the year. An Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call-report data found that bank and thrift repurchases and indemnifications totaled $1.012 billion in the second quarter, the lowest level since the first quarter of 2008. Buyback volume has been ... [Includes one data chart]
Freddie Mac could save millions of dollars a year in faulty reimbursement payouts to its servicers by investing additional resources in a wider selection of reviews, according to an audit issued last week by the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Inspector General. In 2013, Freddie reimbursed 460 of its servicers $1.4 billion but identified and denied $126 million in what the IG calls “erroneous” claims. The IG noted that Freddie’s top 10 servicers, relative to total reimbursements, accounted for 87 percent of all reimbursements made by Freddie in 2013. Servicers of Freddie and Fannie Mae loans often maintain...
Banks’ mortgage banking efforts through two quarters in 2014 pale in comparison to the first half of last year, though income and other metrics improved in the second quarter, according to an analysis of call report data by Inside Mortgage Trends, an affiliated newsletter. Banks had a total of $4.91 billion in mortgage banking income in the second quarter, up 45.5 percent from the first three months of the year. However, mortgage banking income was well below levels seen in the first half of 2013, before the most recent refinance boom ground to a halt. Banks had...
The New York AG has secured a temporary restraining order barring the loan mod companies from collecting advance fees. The state's top cop also froze their bank accounts.
Chuck Klein, managing partner of Mortgage Banking Solutions, is engaged in roughly 12 transactions. “I think at least six of those will close,” he said.
Roughly $1 billion in damages will flow through to the FHA and Ginnie Mae from Bank of America’s record $16.65 billion global mortgage-backed securities settlement with the Department of Justice. Although most of the DOJ’s case centered around faulty private-label MBS that BofA and its forbears (namely Countrywide and Merrill Lynch) underwrote during the housing boom, a small piece of the settlement is tied to servicing chores that the bank did for Ginnie Mae. And apparently, BofA didn’t do a very good job of servicing the underlying product. The bank took over as the subservicer on roughly $26.2 billion in mortgage servicing rights that once belonged to Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, a large nonbank based in Ocala, FL. When TBW went bust in the second half of 2009, BofA was given the subservicing contract. “BofA serviced the loans for us,” said Ginnie Mae president Ted Tozer. “And they did a ...
The FHA has issued two final rules enhancing consumer protections – one prohibiting lenders from charging additional interest on FHA-insured mortgages that are paid in full and another ensuring that borrowers of adjustable-rate mortgages receive earlier notice of rate changes. Both rules were published in the Aug. 26 Federal Register. The first rule eliminates the practice of charging the borrower a full-month’s interest even if the mortgage is prepaid in full before the end of the month. It adopted the proposed rule, which was issued for comment on March 13, 2014, without change. Effective Jan. 21, 2015, charging borrowers post-settlement interest, which is broadly defined by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a “prepayment penalty,” will be prohibited for all FHA single-family mortgage products and programs. In the rule’s preamble, HUD said it expects lenders to ...
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