On Aug. 1, the U.S. Senate voted 92-6 to pass a four-bill appropriations package that includes FY 2019 funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Agriculture housing programs. The bill passed without changes to program funding levels previously approved by Senate appropriators. The House Appropriations Committee has approved FY19 spending bills for both HUD and USDA. The full House, which is away for the summer break until Sept. 4, has not yet voted on the package. The Senate bill retains the previous fiscal year’s $400 billion in new loan commitments in the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund and $30 billion for the general insurance and special risk insurance program, which include special purpose single- and multifamily loans, multifamily rental housing and condominiums. The bill also sets aside $550 billion for Ginnie Mae ...

Quicken Loan has announced a new reverse mortgage alternative that offers more flexibility and features than FHA’s Home Equity Conversion Mortgage product. Simply called HELO, the Home Equity Loan Optimizer is available through Quicken’s reverse-mortgage retailer, One Reverse Mortgage. It will soon be available through the wholesale broker channel as well, according to Gregg Smith, president and CEO of One Reverse Mortgage. HELO’s best feature is its higher loan limit of up to $4 million, which particularly benefits equity-rich seniors, compared to the maximum claim amount for an insured HECM, which is $679,650, or 150 percent above the Freddie Mac conforming loan limit. Unlike HECMs, HELO allows seller concessions as well as debt consolidation to be paid off at closing, which is prohibited in traditional HECMs. To qualify, borrowers must have a minimum credit score ...

Redwood Trust, which helped pioneer the return of the jumbo mortgage-backed securities market earlier in the decade, reported net earnings of $33.0 million for the second quarter, down 29.7 percent from the previous period.

Accounting issues related to a prior acquistion led to a $97.4 million net loss for the second quarter at Impac Holdings, the nonbank reported this week. Despite significant challenges in the market, the company managed to boost its production of home loans that don’t meet the qualified-mortgage standard.

A legislative proposal to charge veterans, servicemembers and military spouses more for a VA home loan is getting heat from lenders and the Department of Veterans Affairs itself. Testifying before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs last week, Paul Lawrence, VA undersecretary for benefits, warned that increasing VA loan fees would impose additional financial burdens on veterans who are trying to buy a home, making them more vulnerable to predatory lending. Fee-related proposals are included in H.R. 299, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2017. The House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 382-0 in June and it is currently under consideration in the Senate. H.R. 229 would expand disability benefits to Vietnam veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange while serving on U.S. ships offshore or on the ground in Thailand and the Korean demilitarized ...

The appraisal industry is opposed to a legislative proposal that would make changes to how appraisals are procured for the VA home loan program. The appraisal measure is one of the key provisions in H.R. 299, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act, which the House of Representatives passed by a vote of 382-0 in June. The bill is now pending in the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. The Blue Water Act would clarify presumptions relating to veterans’ exposure to herbicide, such as Agent Orange, during the Vietnam era and disability claims. The bill also proposes changes to the VA loan fee structure, including a proposed hike to the fees veterans, servicemembers and their spouses pay to obtain a VA-guaranteed home loan. The appraisal provision in H.R. 299 would allow VA appraisers to engage a third party to perform property inspections on their behalf. The provision addresses a problem with ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reported $6.96 billion in net income during the second quarter, down 3.2 percent from the previous quarter, and the duo have actively been working to trim their retained portfolios. Freddie has reduced its portfolio to $236.4 billion in the second quarter, well below the 2018 yearend purchase agreement cap of $250.0 billion. Its portfolio declined 1.9 percent in the second quarter but was down 16.7 percent from June 2017. Some 41.8 percent of ...

Despite a solid increase in mortgage originations and stable conditions for hedging, commercial banks and savings institutions reported generally lackluster earnings on their mortgage banking operations in the second quarter. A new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports from 24 banking organizations tallied $1.98 billion in mortgage banking income for the second quarter. That was down 12.3 percent from the first three months of ... [Includes one data chart]

With originations tepid of late, mortgage banking firms have been holding their payrolls steady, careful not to add overhead in what might prove to be a challenging market for the remainder of 2018. According to figures compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, mortgage banking firms employed 251,600 workers at the end of June, flat compared to the prior month. Companies that fall into the loan brokerage category employed 91,400 full timers at June 30, down 400 positions from May ...

The Mortgage Bankers Association recently asked the federal banking agencies to provide an update on a proposal to increase the amount of mortgage servicing assets that a bank may count to-wards Tier 1 capital. In a letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve, the MBA reiterated its support for the agencies’ proposal to raise a recommended 25 percent cap on the amount of mortgage servicing assets that may be ...