Based on mortgage production figures reported by the five largest banks with substantial involvement in the residential home loan market, third-quarter originations likely rose about 10 percent from the previous period. Five bank mortgage lenders – Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, U.S. Bank and Citigroup – reported a combined $135.5 billion in home loan production during the third quarter. That was up a respectable 9.0 percent from the second quarter. But during the second quarter, their combined production jumped 30.0 percent from the first three months of the year. However, the five major banks have...[Includes one data table]

Executive departures continue to plague due diligence provider Clayton Holdings and now there’s talk that its parent company, Radian Group, is contemplating taking a goodwill charge on a subsidiary it paid $305 million for two years ago. The latest top-level officials to leave the unit include Capital Markets Senior Managing Director Brian Wornow and Mark Hughes, executive vice president in charge of sales and marketing. Sources close to Wornow contend...

PHH Corp. this week scored a key legal victory in its battle with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over captive reinsurance and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. But despite this good news, there are still clouds over the nonbank. The “worst” of the recent spate of bad news for the company surrounds the early October disclosure that Merrill Lynch is breaking all ties to PHH when it comes to private-label originations and servicing. The effective date for the end of the contract is...

Bank pricing strategies are more about responding to new product regulations, fee income and capital and liquidity standards rather than to their consumers’ view of value, according to a new Deloitte report on retail-bank pricing. The report, which attempts to make the case for value-based pricing, contends that bank pricing tactics focus primarily on costs and risks rather than on how consumers perceive and receive value. It’s...

Not only are commercial banks continuing to lose residential production market share, but it appears they are paying their retail loan officers less than nonbanks – a lot less. According to more than a dozen interviews conducted with executives and LOs at originating firms with different charters, some nonbanks are allowing for compensation plans that pay the originator upwards of 200 basis points. At banks, the best LO comp plan is 100 bps, Inside Mortgage Finance found. One bank mortgage manager, who spoke under the condition his name not be used, said...

A Manhattan district court judge last week dismissed lawsuits brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. against three large banks, saying the agency no longer has standing to sue after it sold the defective mortgages through a re-securitization transaction. Judge Andrew Carter of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York threw out the government’s suits against Citigroup, Bank of New York Mellon and U.S. Bancorp, which accused the banks of failing as trustees to ensure the quality of $2.7 billion in MBS purchased by the failed Texas-based Guaranty Bank. Reuters was the first to report Carter’s decision. Guaranty went...

The share of adjustable-rate mortgages held in portfolio hit an exceptionally high level in the second quarter of 2016, according to a new analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. An estimated $53.00 billion in ARMs were originated in the second quarter of 2016 and $4.69 billion in ARMs were included in mortgage-backed securities issued during the period. The ARM securitization rate in the second quarter was 8.8 percent, down from 13.9 percent ... [Includes two data charts]

Ginnie Mae rode a surging purchase-mortgage market and heavy refinance activity to new production records during the third quarter of 2016. The agency issued a whopping $145.14 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of MBS disclosures. That figure is based on pool-level disclosures that reveal exact principal balance amounts and it includes securities backed by FHA home-equity conversion mortgages. The data in the table below are based on truncated loan-level disclosures and do not include HECM activity. New Ginnie MBS issuance in the third quarter was up 15.7 percent from the previous quarter. Ginnie MBS production set three consecutive monthly records during the third quarter, culminating in a huge $52.46 billion month in September. Purchase-mortgage activity was the key driver, but the ... [ 4 charts ]

Requiring an undercapitalized issuer to repurchase uninsured performing mortgages out of a mortgage-backed securities pool could increase risk to the federal government, warned Ginnie Mae. Responding to an adverse audit report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General, Ginnie said that while it generally accepts the IG’s recommendations, forcing an undercapitalized issuer to buy out performing loans and either hold them in portfolio or sell them at a substantial loss would put the government at greater risk. “This is something we need to be alert to in certain cases,” the agency said. According to the report, Ginnie improperly allowed more than $49 million of single-family mortgages with terminated insurance to remain in its MBS pools for more than one year without obtaining FHA coverage. The IG warned Ginnie could be on the ...

Lenders are optimistic about a proposed rule that would reinstate FHA spot financing in unapproved condominium projects, saying this could be the spark that would jump-start the slow condo market.The proposed rules would clarify and modify certain FHA rules to kick-start condominium lending activity, and allow some flexibility in existing approval standards. Key proposals include the reinstatement of spot approvals in unapproved condominium developments and extending the effective recertification period for condo approvals to three years, rather than the current two-year requirement. Prior to 2009, spot approval allowed a buyer to use FHA financing to purchase a unit in an unapproved condo project, but the HUD approval process was expensive and time consuming. Consequently, few lenders were able to take advantage of the spot-approval program. The Department of ...