Recent actions by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government-sponsored enterprises and FHA to make it easier for borrowers to get a mortgage are probably going to be an inconsequential wash overall, according to a panel of industry representatives and policy experts. However, there was some optimism expressed as well. Commenting on last week’s changes from the FHFA on GSE guaranty fees and loan-level price adjustments, Ron Haynie, senior vice president of ...

Most of the slack is being taken up by nonbanks, which serviced $1.571 trillion of agency MBS at March 31.

Quicken Loans this week went where no lender in the mortgage industry has gone before: Suing the U.S. government for suggesting it’s been doing a crappy job of originating FHA loans. Its legal action not only caught most of the industry by surprise, but resulted in loud applause from the Mortgage Bankers Association and K&L Gates partner Larry Platt. A number of major lenders have paid...

DOJ cites an email written by a Quicken divisional vice president for underwriting who brags that the lender has a team that is “responsible to pushback on appraisers questioning their appraised values.”

The Federal Reserve is seen as taking the brunt of nonbank servicer-induced prepayment risk on agency MBS.

Quicken is the first major lender in the nation to challenge the government in this regard by filing a lawsuit.

The lender says government investigators have conducted lengthy depositions with numerous Quicken leaders…

The CFPB brought an enforcement action against RMK Financial Corp., a California-based mortgage lender, for allegedly using deceptive mortgage advertising practices, including ads that led consumers to believe that the company was affiliated with the U.S. government. According to the CFPB, RMK used the names and logos of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the FHA in mailed advertisements in such a way as to falsely imply that the ads were sent by the VA or FHA, or that the company or the mortgage products it advertised were endorsed or sponsored by those agencies. RMK’s ads also allegedly misrepresented the loans’ interest rates and estimated monthly payments, including whether the interest rate was fixed or variable. Consumers who called the ...

The CFPB put out a final interpretive rule last week on how lenders should provide mortgage applicants with a list of local homeownership counseling organizations. Lenders may fulfill this Dodd-Frank Act requirement by using bureau-developed housing counseling lists, which are available via an online tool the CFPB created in 2013, or by generating their own lists using the same Department of Housing and Urban Development data the bureau uses to build its lists. The interpretive rule restates guidance the CFPB issued in 2013, and provides further guidance for lenders who are building their own lists of housing counselors. In response to questions the CFPB has received, the guidance also includes new instructions about how to provide applicants abroad with homeownership ...

The trend reflects the surge in VA home loan originations over the past few years at a time when the FHA has lost market share to private mortgage insurers.