FHA to Extend Short Refi Program. The FHA has announced its intent to extend its Short Refinance Program for borrowers in negative equity positions. A mortgagee letter will be issued soon to announce the extension. Feedback Period extended for Draft Servicing Section of Proposed Single Family Handbook. The FHA is extending the comment period for the draft servicing section of the Single Family Housing Policy Handbook through Nov. 14, 2014 to allow stakeholders additional time to study and comment on the proposed section. The original deadline date was Oct. 17. CFPB Updates Reverse Mortgage Guide. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently updated its reverse mortgage guide on its website to account for recent changes made by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program. The updated guide highlights new limits to ...

Back in 2004, credit unions accounted for just 3.2 percent of total mortgage originations. Not anymore.

Back in the first quarter of 2013, only 31.3 percent of Fannie/Freddie purchase mortgages had private mortgage insurance.

Mortgage lenders delivered $47.82 billion of single-family home loans with private mortgage insurance coverage to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the third quarter of 2014, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. That was up 29.9 percent from the second quarter of this year as the private MIs piggybacked on the surge in purchase-money mortgages securitized by the two government-sponsored enterprises. Private MI coverage was provided on 39.2 percent of purchase loans sold to the GSEs during the third quarter, and the industry has seen its penetration rate of the sector climb steadily. Back in the first quarter of 2013, only 31.3 percent of Fannie/Freddie purchase mortgages had...[Includes two data charts]

Shareholders are appealing a federal judge’s decision last week to toss out their legal challenge to the federal government’s siphoning off of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac profits, and a legal expert says they could be helped out by what comes out in discovery in other investor lawsuits. Speaking during a conference call sponsored by Investors Unite, New York School of Law Professor Richard Epstein – who does not own stock in the government-sponsored enterprises – blasted the “misguided” ruling by Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He characterized it as an overly generous interpretation of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 in favor of the Treasury Department and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. “Although the government claimed to be looking out for the shareholders, it ended up...

Affordable housing advocates are continuing their full-court press against the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, demanding that the FHFA greenlight financing for the dormant National Housing Trust Fund after a setback in federal court. U.S. District Court Judge Marcia Cooke of the Southern District of Florida last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by the National Low Income Housing Coalition on the grounds that the NLIHC lacks standing to sue the FHFA. Cooke also found that the court does not have jurisdiction over the decisions of the agency. The coalition filed...

Mortgage underwriting standards are relaxing somewhat, according to a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance, particularly as production has shifted from a focus on refinances to purchase mortgages. However, underwriting standards are much more stringent than they were before the financial crisis, with few options available for nonprime borrowers. The average credit score on purchase mortgages included...

IMT also found that in 3Q, seven of the top 15 sellers to Fannie and Freddie were nonbanks.

Among our findings, a few things stand out, including the ascension of PennyMac to the number two position among Ginnie Mae issuers.

For those lenders originating HELOCs, they will have more failed loans on their hands – that is, if the theory is proved true.