A North Carolina federal judge announced from the bench this week he is considering dismissing a Justice Department fraud case against Bank of America, citing a less than overwhelming preponderance of evidence. U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn said during a hearing that he is leaning toward shutting down the DOJ’s case as per the March recommendation of U.S. Magistrate Judge David Cayer, who found that the Justice Dept. has failed to prove the bank made “material” false statements to the Federal Housing Finance Board. “DOJ may not have...
American Capital Agency Corp., the second-largest REIT MBS investor, reported a sharp 14.6 percent drop in its holdings during the first quarter. But officials are upbeat about the future.
The 16.4 percent increase was more likely due to the fact that a huge number of reverse mortgages closed in November and December but were not insured by FHA until January, said one lender.
The CFPB recently convened a small business review panel as per the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 to discuss potential amendments to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, Kelly Thompson Cochran, acting assistant director for regulations at the CFPB, said in a recent blog posting. The amendments made by the Dodd-Frank Act expand the scope of information relating to mortgage applications and loans that must be compiled, maintained and reported under HMDA, including the ages of loan applicants and mortgagors, information relating to the points and fees payable at origination, and the difference between the annual percentage rate associated with the loan and benchmark rates for all loans. Other new inclusions are...
How Not to Run a Website. The “links” section of the website of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee is so outdated, not only does it not have a link to the CFPB, arguably the majority’s favorite regulatory agency, it also has links to the Federal Housing Finance Board and the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Both of those agencies were subsumed and replaced by the Federal Housing Finance Agency back in 2008. Not surprisingly, there also is no link on the committee’s website to the FHFA’s website. Meanwhile, neither fhfb.gov nor ofheo.gov have...
Strong appetite from lenders for jumbo mortgages wasn’t enough to overcome the overall decline in mortgage production in the first quarter of 2014. Jumbo originations declined by 21.4 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2013, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. And the estimated $44.0 billion in jumbos originated in the first quarter was down by 31.3 percent compared with the same period in 2013. The non-agency jumbo sector has gained some market share during that time as overall production has declined even more. Jumbos accounted for 18.7 percent of total originations in the first quarter of 2014, a level not seen since 2004. Wells Fargo remained...[Includes one data chart]
Industry representatives and policy wonks diverge in their opinions about whether federal financial regulators will put out a final rule or another proposed final rule as the next step in the long-delayed risk-retention rule for asset securitizers. The qualified residential mortgage designation – which would exempt non-agency MBS from the five percent risk-retention requirement – has been one of the biggest controversies. According to Politico, the Securities and Exchange Commission continues to hold up a final deal because its staff thinks a minimum downpayment requirement for QRM would better protect investors. Under the latest version of the rule, the QRM definition would be synched...
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