The Department of Veterans Affairs has made recommendations to VA lenders and borrowers calling in with questions and problems at VA regional centers to avoid long wait times and have their concerns resolved as quickly as possible. In a recent memo to lenders, the VA Loan Guaranty Service is reporting that many of its regional loan centers (RLC) are being swamped with calls due to record increases in VA originations in recent months. While this suggests that more veterans are using their housing loan benefit than ever before, the large volume of calls to VA has caused long hold times for callers and delayed processing of borrower certificates of eligibility (COE). To cut down on the waiting time, the VA urged lenders and borrowers to consider several things before making the call. First, do not call to check on the status of a COE request if there is no urgent need, like an ...

VA Home Loan Guaranty has issued clarification regarding title requirements for manufactured or mobile homes conveyed to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Effective immediately, VA is requiring proof of noteholders’ compliance with the agency’s requirements for guaranteed mobile-home financing. Foreclosure title packages that do not include the required documents will be rejected, the agency warned. Under federal law, a manufactured home must be permanently affixed and classified as real property in the state where it is located. VA will not guarantee financing if the property does not meet the criteria. To ensure that a guaranty claim is fully payable and that the holder has the option to convey the manufactured home to VA, servicers must ensure that home loans with a VA guarantee meet federal requirements. Under the clarified VA guidelines, servicers may submit the ...

New FHA guidance for dealing with mortgages with a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) obligation went into effect last week but uncertainty lingers and its full impact remains to be seen, according to an industry attorney. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued guidance specifically allowing properties encumbered by a PACE lien to be eligible for FHA mortgage financing for both purchase and refinance loans. The department of Veterans Affairs has issued similar guidance. According to Erika Sonstroem, an attorney with the law firm Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, the PACE industry is touting the guidance in its pitches to lenders as posing no risk to mortgage investors. PACE is a program that lends money to homeowners for home-energy savings projects. It is treated much like a tax lien on a property and is included in the ...

Thanks to booming originations the past few months – which should translate into higher guaranty fee income – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are likely to post their strongest profits of the year in the third quarter, according to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance this week. But it’s not just higher loan production that should allow profits to soar – it’s the fact that the yield on the 10-year Treasury now stands at 1.69 percent, 21 basis points higher than June 30. The 10-year rate is...

With rising origination volume and solid gain-on-sale margins, the business of originating and selling home loans generated substantially more earnings during the second quarter of 2016, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports. But the servicing side of the business had trouble generating positive income after taking into account gyrations in mortgage servicing rights valuations and the hedges lenders place on these assets ... [Includes one data chart]

Mortgage bankers booked hefty earnings on their loan origination and secondary marketing during the second quarter, but servicing hedges deepened, according to the latest Mortgage Bankers Association performance report. The average company participating in the survey reported pretax income of $2.913 million during the second quarter, nearly quadruple the average for the previous period. That lifted year-to-date pretax income to $3.665 million, still off 16.7 percent ...

Benchmarking and other advanced analytics are helping many lenders grow their originations, according to TransUnion, a provider of data, analytics and consulting services. A recent survey by the company also found that a majority of lending organizations lack the resources to realize the competitive benefits of analytics. Versta Research surveyed 309 banks on behalf of TransUnion. Some 66 percent of the lenders said data and analytics are evolving faster than ...

Mortgage repurchase activity by banks and thrifts took an unexpected turn higher during the second quarter, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call reports. Call reports show that banks and thrifts repurchased $804.1 million of single-family mortgages, or otherwise indemnified a buyer, during the second quarter. That was up $40.0 million or 5.2 percent from the first three months of the year and marked the second straight quarterly ... [Includes one data chart]

On August 11, 2016, the most severe storm in decades hit southern Louisiana, including the city of Baton Rouge and 22 surrounding parishes. The massive rainfall brought an estimated 29 inches over a two-day period, submerging homes in three to six feet of floodwater and stranding thousands of people in their homes. On the east side of Baton Rouge is the Amite River, which separates the Ascension and Livingston parishes, where a good number of GMFS Mortgage employees ...

Tennessee Lender Agrees to $70 million Settlement to Resolve Alleged FHA Violations. Franklin American Mortgage of Franklin, TN, has agreed to pay the federal government $70 million to resolve allegations of failing to comply with FHA requirements. Specifically, the direct endorsement lender allegedly engaged in improper underwriting of FHA loans between Jan. 1, 2006, and Dec. 31, 2012, which later resulted in submission of claims and substantial losses to the FHA insurance fund. Franklin entered into a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Inspector General. As part of the settlement, Franklin acknowledged “it engaged in certain conduct in connection with its origination, underwriting, and quality control of certain single-family residential mortgage loans insured by FHA.” The settlement was neither an admission of ...