VA lenders are reporting faster turnaround times in processing borrower requests for certificates of eligibility (COEs). At a Ginnie Mae summit in Washington, DC, recently, agency officials said more than 70 percent of COEs are issued instantaneously. That is a vast improvement from six years ago, when it took VA about 26 days to issue a COE, said VA Acting Director Jeffrey London. A certificate of eligibility verifies a veteran’s eligibility for the VA home loan benefit. VA’s electronic applications can verify eligibility and issue a COE in a matter of seconds. “Previously we were getting less than 40 percent electronic submissions of COE requests,” London recalled. “We have improved our system so that this year alone, 95.6 percent of our COEs are issued electronically. Out of that 95.6 percent, 65 percent are issued automatically with no human involvement.” London said the ...
Lenders are optimistic about a proposed rule that would reinstate FHA spot financing in unapproved condominium projects, saying this could be the spark that would jump-start the slow condo market.The proposed rules would clarify and modify certain FHA rules to kick-start condominium lending activity, and allow some flexibility in existing approval standards. Key proposals include the reinstatement of spot approvals in unapproved condominium developments and extending the effective recertification period for condo approvals to three years, rather than the current two-year requirement. Prior to 2009, spot approval allowed a buyer to use FHA financing to purchase a unit in an unapproved condo project, but the HUD approval process was expensive and time consuming. Consequently, few lenders were able to take advantage of the spot-approval program. The Department of ...
Industry groups are urging the Department of Housing and Urban Development to reconsider a supplemental proposal to require mortgagees to assign a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loan to the FHA once the loan balance reaches 98 percent of the maximum claim amount (MCA). The Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association said there are more disadvantages than benefits to the proposal. The supplemental proposal is an offshoot from a previous HUD proposed rule to codify significant changes made to the HECM program by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, the Reverse Mortgage Stabilization Act of 2013 and all other revisions in between. Both groups recommended that HUD maintain its current assignment election options rather than adopt the proposed rule. Currently, mortgagees have an option, before the ...
The initial material defect rate of FHA loans has increased to 50 percent in the third quarter of 2016 from the previous quarter, according to the latest FHA Lender Insight report on quality control. A good portion of the defective mortgage loans, however, has been mitigated during the post-endorsement technical review process, the report indicated. In the second quarter, the initial material defect rate had been flat, averaging 47.4 percent over the last eight quarters. The latest report show the top five mitigated findings, which reflect the number of initially unacceptable ratings and the number of findings mitigated for loans between April and June, 2016. Some 6,312 FHA loans comprised the sample, and they consisted of purchase loans (71.0 percent), streamline refinance (13.5 percent), rate and term refis (9.0 percent), and Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (6.7 percent). In addition, ...
The Department of Veterans Affairs is urging VA lenders, borrowers and other participants in its loan guaranty program to adopt recommended standards, equipment and activities to reduce water and energy usage and to ease the impact of natural disasters. The VA has recommended wind-hazard standards, resilient building and retrofitting standards, a water- and energy-saving program, and property-and-energy conservation strategies to help VA borrowers protect their homes against storms, flooding, earthquakes and other calamities. VA made clear it allows, but does not require, any of the recommended standards, strategies or equipment. The programs are strictly voluntary, it said. The agency noted the increasing incidence of extreme weather events, earthquakes and flooding, which makes planning and building in the most resilient and economically feasible ways all the ...
The Department of Veterans Affairs adopted without change its interim final rule increasing the maximum amount of civil fines it can assess on lenders and other offenders for violations of agency loan-guaranty rules and regulations. Under the interim final rule VA issued for comment back in June, maximum civil monetary penalties would increase from $10,000 to $21,563 for false loan-guaranty certifications. Civil fines for fraudulent claims or statements in any VA program would increase from $5,500 to $10,781. The VA published the interim final rule on June 22, 2016, to implement the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 and to improve the effectiveness of civil fines and maintain their deterrent effect. The new penalty amounts became ...
Ginnie Mae FY 2016 Highlights. “So far, we’ve pretty much broken every record,” said a Ginnie Mae spokesperson. Total mortgage-backed securities issuance for FY 2016 was $490.3 billion, “an all-time high by a pretty wide margin,” according to the spokesperson. September MBS issuance was also at an all-time high: $54.8 billion. Ginnie Mae commitment authority for the fiscal year was $430.2 billion. Approximately 2.3 million mortgage loans worth $462 billion underlay Ginnie’s single-family MBS pools in FY 2016. Of this total, $278 billion (1.4 million loans) were purchase mortgages, and $184 billion (0.9 million loans) were refinances or modified loans. Of the purchase dollar volume, first-time homebuyers accounted for $200 billion (1.1 million loans). Of the $462 billion single-family MBS pools, FHA accounted for 57.1 percent ($264 billion), VA, 38.8 percent ($179 billion), and rural housing loans, 3.9 percent ($18 billion). New California Law Protects Spouses of HECM Borrowers from ‘Widow Foreclosure.’ On Sept. 29, 2016, California Gov. Jerry Brown, D, signed Senate Bill 1150 into law to protect widows, widowers and other heirs of mortgage borrowers from unnecessary foreclosures.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized $135.69 billion of single-family purchase mortgages during the third quarter, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of mortgage-backed securities disclosures by the two government-sponsored enterprises. That was up a hefty 26.2 percent from the previous quarter, and it represented the biggest quarterly flow of purchase mortgages to the GSEs since the housing market collapse. Although the loans were pooled in MBS issued during the third quarter, a significant number of them were actually originated during the April-June cycle. The third quarter typically has...[Includes three data tables]
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