Reporting on VA Loans Impacted by Natural Disaster. The Department of Veterans Affairs is cautioning servicers against reporting as delinquent VA loans that are impacted by a natural disaster. The electronic default notification (EDN) should only be reported prior to the 61st day of delinquency if the borrower intends to abandon the property or pursue an alternative to foreclosure, according to VA. Cite “property problems” as the reason for default, the agency added. On the 61st day of delinquency, servicers should use “casualty loss” as the reason for default when reporting the EDN. This will help VA identify loan defaults caused by a natural disaster. Texas USDA Guaranteed Housing Program See Increased Volume. The USDA guaranteed single-family guaranteed housing programs in the Lone Star State are experiencing significant volume increases, and consequently, ...

The nation’s major banks had a challenging third quarter as residential production declined at most of the larger shops while nimble-footed nonbanks outperformed, according to a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends. Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest home lender and a bellwether for the industry, originated $45.2 billion in residential first liens during the third quarter, a 7.1 percent sequential decline. Its closest competitor, JPMorgan Chase, fared a bit better, funding $24.6 billion of ...

Publicly-traded commercial banks and thrifts saw a modest decline in mortgage income during the third quarter, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports. A diverse group of 23 banks reported a combined $1.926 billion in mortgage banking income for the third quarter, down 1.8 percent from the previous period. Their combined year-to-date profits totaled $6.132 billion, off 13.6 percent from the first nine months of 2017. All but one ... [Includes one data chart]

Wells Fargo was set to price its first post-crisis jumbo mortgage-backed security this week, marking a significant occasion for the sector. Wells is the largest originator of jumbo mortgages and the bank has been holding production in portfolio instead of issuing non-agency MBS. Company officials note that the $441.3 million Wells Fargo Mortgage Backed Securities 2018-1 Trust is in part a test of the MBS market by the bank. The deal is scheduled to close on Oct. 25. MBS issuers generally can't ...

A rise in interest rates on mortgages will help First Republic Bank, San Francisco, gain market share in jumbo originations, according to officials at the bank. Through the first six months of 2018, First Republic ranked fourth among non-agency jumbo lenders, accounting for 3.8 percent of the estimated $140.0 billion of jumbo originations, according to Inside Nonconforming Markets. James Herbert, chairman and CEO of First Republic, noted that some jumbo lenders are reducing staff as originations decline ...

The amount of single-family Ginnie Mae mortgage servicing rights increased a modest 0.9 percent during the third quarter, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. Some $1.858 trillion of Ginnie mortgage-backed securities were outstanding at the end of September, a 6.2 percent gain over the previous 12 months. Loans guaranteed by the VA continued to be the fastest growing segment of the Ginnie market. Volume was up 1.3 percent from the end of June, hitting $630.9 billion, an 11.0 percent increase from the same time last year. The FHA segment remained far bigger: $1.114 trillion at the end of the third quarter. However, its growth rate has been slower: 0.7 percent from June and 3.9 percent compared to September 2017. Loan performance deteriorated slightly in both programs. Some 92.9 percent of FHA loans were current at the end of September, down from ... [Charts]

Participants in Ginnie Mae’s single-family mortgage-backed securities program may expect new policy changes, including servicer and credit ratings for the largest issuers, clarification of “appropriate sources of liquidity” and other financial requirements. The changes come as issuer liquidity continues to be a primary concern for Ginnie Mae, particularly with nonbanks now the dominant segment in the single-family MBS program. “We’re working on those policies right now,” said Leslie Meaux Pordzik, Ginnie’s acting senior vice president, Office of Issuer and Portfolio Management, at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention in Washington, DC, this week. Nonbanks account for nearly two-thirds of Ginnie MBS issuance and approximately 75 percent of FHA and VA lending. Nonbanks serviced a record 61.1 percent of outstanding Ginnie single-family MBS at the end of the ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has asked the Office of Management and Budget to review a draft final rule that would establish major requirements for guaranteed cash-out refinance loans. The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which reformed the Dodd-Frank Act, gave VA the authority to regulate cash-out refis. The agency has 180 days from enactment to promulgate regulations. The final rule sets the parameters of VA cash-out home loans, to include defining net tangible benefit, recoupment and seasoning requirements. The Dodd-Frank reform act and Ginnie Mae have established similar requirements for Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loans. IRRRLs and, to a much lesser extent, cash-out refis came under scrutiny due to loan churning or serial refinancing. Last year, a small group of lenders targeted servicemembers and veterans with VA loans to ...

Ginnie Mae has made considerable progress in dealing with rapid prepayments on VA loans but prepayment speeds on Ginnie mortgage-backed securities in general continue to annoy investors. Prepay speeds on Ginnie MBS are now at the lowest since 2014 but it is not enough for agency Executive Vice President Maren Kasper to feel confident as she addressed the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association this week. “Our prepayment issue is not solved,” said Kasper, as she spoke on a panel with representatives of government-lending programs. The agency continues to hear from investors about the problem, she said. Kasper cited two instances where Ginnie officials were summoned to meetings in China and New York to explain the prepayments to irate investors. They threatened to stop purchasing Ginnie bonds, she said. Kasper declined to say how bad the ...

Community mortgage lenders are asking the U.S. Senate to consider with caution before voting on legislative language passed recently by the House of Representatives to address “orphan” VA streamline refinance loans. Specifically, the Community Mortgage Lenders of America asked the Senate to step back and allow some time for substitute language to be presented with input from the industry and the Department of Veterans Affairs. At issue is the wording in H.R. 6737, the Protect Affordable Mortgages for Veterans Act of 2018. The bill fixes a technical issue that prevented VA lenders from pooling certain VA Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loans in Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities pools. Approximately 2,500 VA refi loans were affected by an inconsistency between the loan seasoning guidelines issued by Ginnie in late 2016 and provisions in the ...