It’s likely that mortgage lenders and servicers will get some degree of consideration and accommodation from the CFPB during the Trump administration, thanks to some reviews the bureau is required to make of its major rulemaking as per the Dodd-Frank Act. “The Dodd-Frank Act requires the CFPB to look back and conduct an assessment of each significant rule not later than five years after its effective date,” said former CFPB official Benjamin Olson, now a partner in the Washington, DC, office of the Buckley Sandler law firm, during a webinar last week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance. The purpose of this assessment is to look at the effectiveness of the rule in meeting its purposes and objectives under the statute ...
The CFPB is Still Open, Government Shutdown and Mick Mulvaney Notwithstanding. Much of the federal government in Washington, DC, is back in shutdown mode, after last-minute budgetary brinkmanship on Capitol Hill failed to keep the requisite funds flowing. ... Cordray to Face Kucinich in Contest for Democrat Nomination for Ohio Governor. Former Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-OH, recently filed paperwork with the Ohio Secretary of State’s office officially declaring his candidacy for the Democrat nomination for governor, an indication that former CFPB Director Richard Cordray will face plenty of opposition for the position....
Consumer complaints to the CFPB about mortgage-related issues are on the verge of a free-fall, with volumes dropping by double digits, quarterly and annually, in every category tracked, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside the CFPB. For starters, total gripes fell 15.9 percent from the third quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter, and by 27.8 percent year over year. Digging into specific kinds of complaints, criticisms about loan modifications mirrored those trend lines, dropping 15.3 percent from 3Q17 to 4Q17, and by 29.2 percent on an annual basis. When it came to mortgage servicing, consumer kvetching was on a parallel track, down 13.0 percent and 26.4 percent, quarter over quarter and year over year, respectively. In ...
The ongoing growth of New Residential Mortgage resulted in an increase in concentration among the top servicers of single-family Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in the fourth quarter.New Residential, a real estate investment trust that invests in mortgage servicing rights and related assets, has rocketed up the ranks of GSE servicers. After picking up its seller-servicer approvals in the third quarter of 2016, the company had amassed a $229.57 billion MSR portfolio by the end of last year.The REIT so far hasn’t invested in Ginnie Mae servicing. Its Fannie/Freddie holdings grew by 13.5 percent during the fourth quarter, enough to vault over Bank of America to become the third-largest investor in GSE MSR. New Residential pays subservicers to handle loan administration duties.
After years of being mum on what he thinks a reformed secondary mortgage market should look like, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt revealed FHFA’s goals for a post-conservatorship housing-finance system. Prompted by what Watt called “the growing perception that reform could be achievable this year,” he wrote to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on Jan. 16 outlining FHFA’s views on reform, which include an explicit government guarantee for mortgage-backed securities comprised of conventional home loans. According to the document, a copy of which was provided to Inside The GSEs, Watt and his staff reiterated that an ongoing conservatorship is not sustainable.
Craig Phillips, counselor to the secretary at the U.S. Department of Treasury, advocated for a legislative solution to the ongoing conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He said the decision to allow the GSEs to retain a small capital buffer was a litmus test on housing reform. Although he said Treasury didn’t feel that Fannie and Freddie have an immediate capital problem because they have lines of credit, Phillips said there was somewhat of an “optical issue,” which led to the Treasury’s decision to allow the GSEs to retain up to $3 billion in capital in December. Speaking at a Women in Housing and Finance public policy luncheon in Washington, he said, “We think that decreases tension over this point. There was...
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