The New York Department of Financial Services expanded its investigation of nonbank servicers, raising concerns about sales of real estate owned properties for Ocwen Financial by Altisource Portfolio Solutions, an affiliate of the nonbank servicer. Officials at Altisource downplayed the concerns late last week and said the company plans to continue to grow with Ocwen. In February, NYDFS Superintendent Ben Lawsky put on indefinite hold a planned servicing transfer from Wells Fargo to Ocwen on mostly non-agency mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of $39.2 billion. Lawsky has sent a number of questions to Ocwen as well as Nationstar Mortgage based on concerns that the nonbank servicers were growing too quickly. Officials at Ocwen note...

A number of lenders have loosened their underwriting standards on non-agency products in recent months in an effort to boost originations as demand for refinances plummets. One of the boldest moves was taken by TD Bank, which this week announced a portfolio loan that has a downpayment requirement as low as 3 percent. The loan is part of the lender’s Right Step mortgage program which features low downpayment loans without private mortgage insurance ...

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said this week that housing finance reform can no longer be put off, but no more so than for the FHA which continues to play an “outsized role” in the mortgage market as private capital remains on the sidelines. Speaking in New York at an event co-hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, Donovan said the Obama administration is squarely behind the legislative proposal by Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID. “Despite its imperfections, does this bill represent progress? Absolutely,” said Donovan, seeking to win over housing advocacy groups disenchanted with the bill. “When looking for ways to improve [the bill], let’s not lose sight of its potential. Let’s not forget its importance to the housing market and its future.” The Johnson-Crapo legislative proposal calls for a wind-down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and creation of a ...

Home Loan Servicing Solutions recently completed its first acquisition of Ginnie Mae whole loans through the agency’s early buy-out (EBO) program. The purchase price for the FHA-insured loans was $556.6 million. HLSS acquired the loans from Ocwen with an unpaid principal balance (UPB) of $549.4 million. Ocwen initially acquired the loans through the GNMA EBO program, which allows Ginnie Mae servicers to purchase delinquent loans from applicable loan securitization pools. HLSS financed its purchase by opening a new $600 million mortgage loan facility. It received $472.7 million in proceeds from this facility to help fund its EBO loan purchase from Ocwen. The loans are held as investments in a special purpose entity (SPE). “It is our expectation that since our GNMA EBO loans are insured by the FHA, the cash flows of this SPE will be sufficient to meet all claims of the debt holders,” the company said ...

Mortgage-banking income at nine major banks declined by 27.7 percent in the first quarter of 2014 compared with the previous quarter, according to an analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends. The declines were driven by a lack of refinance volume, changes in valuations on mortgage servicing rights and litigation costs. “Despite a relatively favorable interest-rate environment, the market got off to a slow start in 2014,” said Marianne Lake, CFO at JPMorgan Chase, during the bank’s ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did significantly less business during the first quarter of 2014 along just about every metric you can think of, but the two government-sponsored enterprises saw out-sized declines from their biggest customers. The top five GSE sellers accounted for just 33.3 percent of single-family mortgage deliveries during the first quarter of this year, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of ... [Includes two data charts]

A new report by Fannie Mae finds that second-home mortgage market activity is in the midst of a strong rebound, representing a small yet significant corner of the mortgage market. Fannie’s report – Second Homes: Recovery Post Financial Crisis – noted that the uneven economic recovery has a benefit to the second-home buyer, who tends to be older, earns more and consequently has the means to make a larger downpayment ... [Includes one data chart]

Some 30.0 percent of homes purchased in March avoided the use of mortgage financing, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. While mostly associated with investors, a fair share of current homeowners rely on cash for home purchases as a way to avoid the hassles associated with mortgage closings. The cash share of home-purchase financing has increased fairly steadily since August, when 26.5 percent of home purchases ...

Demand from borrowers for loans that aren’t “qualified mortgages” has prompted many banks to continue to offer non-QMs such as interest-only mortgages or non-agency mortgages with debt-to-income ratios above 43 percent. “We’ve pretty much made the decision that the risk of there being any kind of a kickback from an individual – if we underwrite that thing and document ourselves and do the things we need to do – is a risk worth taking,” said Derek Williams ...

Undisclosed third parties rejected a small portion of Ocwen Financial’s planned acquisition of mortgage servicing rights from OneWest Bank, according to a report this week from Fitch Ratings. The lack of approval on Ocwen’s MSR purchase was just the latest hurdle faced by nonbank servicers with plans to grow. Last year, Ocwen announced it planned to acquire a significant portion of MSRs from IndyMac Mortgage Services, a division of OneWest. Fitch said the acquisition ...