Depository institutions have been quietly regaining some market share from nonbanks over the past year, even though some of the largest banks continue to pull back, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. Banks, savings institutions and credit unions accounted for 51.3 percent of the $356.85 billion of first-lien mortgage originations by the top 100 lenders during the second quarter. The group boosted its production volume by 19.2 percent from the first three months of the year, while the top 100 overall posted a 17.3 percent gain in volume. It marked...[Includes two data tables]

Bank and thrift holdings of first-lien mortgages continued to increase in the second quarter, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Banks and thrifts held $1.97 trillion of first-lien mortgages at the end of June. The holdings were up by 1.9 percent from March and up 3.8 percent from a year ago. Trends in portfolio management were somewhat mixed among the top 10 holders of first-lien mortgages. Top-ranked Wells Fargo had ... [Includes one data chart]

Rapid, aggressive refinancing of VA loans has made a comeback with some issuers using strategies to mask the practice and avoid possible penalties, including expulsion from the Ginnie Mae program, according to a top agency official. Responding to concerns raised by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, Michael Bright, acting Ginnie Mae president and chief operations officer, said a joint Ginnie Mae/VA lender-abuse task force is analyzing monthly data and developing additional policy measures to deal with the problem. Bright confirmed the resurgence of inappropriate streamline refinancing in Ginnie securitization pools in recent weeks and has promised to crack down on the questionable practice. The problem surfaced last year when Ginnie Mae noticed unusually fast prepayment speeds in its mortgage-backed securities, particularly MBS backed by VA loans. Ginnie found that certain lenders and ...

The Mortgage Bankers Association has recommended steps to address the VA appraiser shortage and increased appraisal turn times. The industry group made its recommendations in a recent letter to Jeffrey London, executive director of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Loan Guaranty Service, based on a roundtable discussion between MBA and other industry stakeholders in March. Stakeholders expressed their concern for the lack of VA appraisers and longer waiting periods for appraisal reports. Appraiser shortage is an ongoing problem for the VA, and has resulted in delayed loan closings, particularly in highly rural areas. Some states, like Oregon, have very few appraisers, the MBA pointed out.“This delay may force veterans to choose other loan programs to meet certain deadlines or face other adverse outcomes,” the MBA letter warned. On the other hand, the ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced a final rule that will allow it to establish reasonable fees to cover the costs of originating and servicing a VA-backed vendee loan. A vendee loan enables a borrower to purchase a VA real estate-owned property. Vendee financing is not a veteran benefit but is available to any purchaser, including veterans and servicemembers. In addition, vendee financing is available for non-owner and owner-occupied residential properties. An owner-occupied purchase can be financed with as little as zero percent downpayment while a non-owner-occupied purchase requires a minimum 5 percent downpayment. In addition, for non-owner-occupied purchases, investors may use 75 percent of anticipated rent, based on an appraiser’s estimate, to offset the subject property monthly payment. Furthermore, investors must have experience in ...

Compliance attorneys are calling for legislative changes to prevent possible misuse of the False Claims Act that could result in settlements that could be financially devastating to mortgage lenders. Concerns about possible government misuse of FCA provisions are evident in the statutory qualifiers that are already embedded in the existing statute, according to a recent analysis by Krista Cooley and Laurence Platt, attorneys and partners in the Washington, DC, office of Mayer Brown. The qualifiers are in the main provision of the FCA that the Department of Justice has used against mortgage lenders and servicers, the attorneys said. The provision imposes liability on any person who “knowingly presents, or causes to be presented, a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval” or “knowingly makes, uses, or causes to be made or used, a false record or statement material to a false or ...

The FHA will provide lenders that originate Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans the option to view and print unsigned HECM counseling certificates in FHA Connection starting Sept. 18, 2017. While the lender may still take the initial loan application, the lender can only begin to process it once the counseling is complete, as evidenced by a completed HECM counseling certificate that contains signatures of both the counselor and borrower. Lenders that chose to use this option will be required to establish procedures to obtain and document authorization from the HECM borrower to access the counseling certificate in FHA Connection. In addition, lenders must certify that a borrower authorization to view the counseling certificate was obtained. Lenders must follow the guidance on processing HECM loans contained in the HUD Handbook, the FHA said. To access HECM counseling certificates, lenders will ...

Partly to comply with liquidity cover ratio requirements imposed in the wake of the financial crisis, U.S. banks ramped up their holdings of high-quality liquid assets. But once they got compliant, many of them shifted their asset allocations more to agency MBS and U.S. Treasuries, according to researchers at the Federal Reserve. This could have implications for the U.S. central bank’s massive balance sheet over the long haul, they added. As of Jan. 1, 2015, large banks in the U.S. have needed...

A handful of large banks continued to retreat from the business of servicing home loans for other investors during the second quarter of 2017, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call reports. Commercial banks and savings institutions reported that they serviced $3.627 trillion of residential mortgages for other investors, typically mortgage-backed securities trusts, as of the end of June. That was down just 0.4 percent from the previous period ... [Includes one data chart]

Mortgage-banking profits improved dramatically during the second quarter as production volume surged and servicing held its own, according to data reported by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Participants in the group’s quarterly mortgage-banking performance study reported average pretax income of $2.12 million for the second quarter. That was up handsomely from the average $886,000 companies earned in the first three months of the year. Profits weren’t as strong as they were ...