The FHA and Ginnie Mae will share in the record-setting $16.7 billion settlement between Bank of America, the Department of Justice and certain other federal agencies and six states to resolve claims related to mortgage fraud and toxic mortgage-backed securities. The FHA will receive approximately $800 million and an undisclosed amount for consumer relief from BofA. The bank was accused of falsely certifying poorly underwritten loans for FHA insurance, resulting in huge losses for the agency. It is unclear how much Ginnie Mae’s share would be from the settlement. “As a direct endorser of FHA-insured loans, Bank of America performs a critical role in home lending,” said U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch for the Eastern District of New York during the announcement of the global settlement in August. “In obtaining a payment of $800 million and sweeping relief for troubled homeowners, we have not ...
Unless contravened by another federal or state statute or jurisdiction, FHA lenders must use the agency’s adjusted fair market value (AFMV) for all foreclosure sales and post-foreclosure sales associated with defaulted FHA loans, according to the FHA. The FHA said it issued guidance because more lenders are using FHA procedures regarding claims without conveyance of title. Before applying the AFMV, lenders must ensure that th loan’s FHA insurance is still active and that the loan is not subject to indemnification. Both items may be verified by checking Neighborhood Watch. Working with the borrower, the lender must make sure that all possible applicable home-retention and loss-mitigation options have been considered and explored before moving to an AFMV alternative. In addition, the lender must determine that the borrower’s case does not meet the criteria for a pre-foreclosure sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. Mortgagees may not proceed with any foreclosure sale until ...
Final PMIERS Rule Expected in 1Q15. The Federal Housing Finance Agency has revised its timeline for publishing a final version of the Private Mortgage Insurance Eligibility Requirements, which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac proposed in July at the direction of the FHFA. The PMIERS will establish capital and other requirements for private mortgage insurers. In a statement, industry trade group U.S. Mortgage Insurers said it has received word from the agency that the final PMIERS would not be published until at least late in the first quarter of 2015. The FHFA initially indicated that a final rule would be issued by yearend 2014. The USMI reiterated its support for an updated PMIERS. Mortgage Executives Concerned About G-Fee Increase. A survey of mortgage executives at this year’s Mortgage Bankers Association annual conference found 53 percent saying that ...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency is continuing to work on new standards that will dictate not only how much capital nonbank servicers must retain, but how much in liquidity reserves they will need, according to industry analysts and advisors familiar with the topic. Moreover, these officials believe that some type of unveiling of those standards – originally planned for December – has been pushed into the first quarter of 2015. “One problem [the] FHFA is facing is...
Mortgage lenders have been chasing purchase-mortgage business since the refinance market started to subside early in 2013, but the refi sector showed considerable strength during the third quarter of this year, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. Refinance originations increased by 21.4 percent from the second quarter to the third, with an estimated $136 billion in production volume. At the same time, purchase-mortgage originations rose by just 5.6 percent, to an estimated $209 billion. Refi lending is...[Includes five data charts]
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should each implement a board-approved risk-management framework that specifically includes risk-based oversight of single-family seller/servicers, according to an advisory bulletin issued this week by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The new “supervisory expectation” covers numerous seller/servicer oversight activities that the government-sponsored enterprises have done for years, albeit pulling them all together under a comprehensive framework. It implements a recommendation made by the FHFA inspector general in July, which expressed concern that the regulator is not paying enough attention to the financial condition of certain nonbank servicers that make up a growing share of Fannie/Freddie business. “FHFA expects...
Private mortgage insurers would support a front-end, risk-transfer program that makes greater use of MI, such as the one proposed by the Mortgage Bankers Association, to reduce taxpayer risk, according to MI executives. The MIs are interested in moving forward with a year-old MBA proposal for a risk-sharing program that would allow deeper MI coverage on loans with high loan-to-value ratios, and coverage on loans with LTVs below 80 percent, accompanied by a reduction in guaranty fees. Importantly, this would require lowering the floor on loss factors to account for these lower-risk loans, the MBA said. However, two important things must be...
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