The steamship that is the nonbank share of the mortgage servicing market showed no signs of changing course in the early months of 2018, a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis reveals. [Includes two charts.]

The Consumer Federation of America agreed that the FICO score used by Fannie and Freddie is outdated and amounts to a monopoly on scoring. It supports the lender-choice option, but with constraints. The CFA recommended that lenders be required to pick a provider for a minimum period and said the models used by the two government-sponsored enterprises should align with one another.

Recent structural changes and new priorities at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will significantly reduce the bureau’s ability to police discriminatory lending, the Brookings Institute said.

The inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency last week said the regulator of the two government-sponsored enterprises should set stricter guidelines for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, more like the approach taken by banking regulators.

In 1Q18, MGIC wrote $10.6 billion of new MI policies compared to $12.8 billion in 4Q17 and $9.3 billion in the first quarter of last year.

Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney is considering removing the CFPB complaint database from public view…

An ominous sign: 80 percent of mortgage companies surveyed earned a pre-tax financial profit for the year, compared to 94 percent tin 2016.

Ditech added that under new leadership, the lender/servicer “continues to develop and execute various strategies to improve” its performance.

Due diligence reviews can be costly, especially when the mortgages being produced are pristine.

Back in July 2017, Fannie revised its automated underwriting system to accept loans with DTI ratios over 45 percent without lenders having to show other compensating factors…