FY 2013 Actuarial Review of Insurance Fund Out in Mid-December. The Department of Housing and Urban Development expects to issue the long-anticipated FHA FY 2013 independent review of the state of the FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund during or before the middle of December. The report’s release was delayed due to the three-week government shutdown in October. The report will show FHA taking a mandatory appropriation of $1.7 billion to close out FY 2013. HUD has clarified that the draw is an accounting transfer required to close out the FHA’s FY 2013 books and not a reflection of ...

In letters to two government agencies, a group of 10 Democrat lawmakers said the FHFA should continue to provide access to government-sponsored enterprise MBS guaranties and the Department of Housing and Urban Development should allow FHA mortgage insurance in such communities.

Some sellers of residential servicing rights are selling bulk, but are also entering into "flow" components.

Any policies employed by federal regulators that restrict mortgage lending in localities that use eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages would violate anti-discrimination laws, according to a group of House Democrats. In letters to two government agencies, a group of 10 Democrat lawmakers led by Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison said the Federal Housing Finance Agency should continue to provide access to government-sponsored enterprise MBS guaranties and the Department of Housing and Urban Development should allow FHA mortgage insurance in such communities. “To deny such access would be illegal under the Fair Housing Act and would violate credit discrimination laws,” according to a draft of the letters obtained by Inside MBS & ABS. An FHFA spokesman confirmed...

Borrowers who refinanced during the three-month period ending Sept. 30 will save approximately $6.0 billion in interest over the next 12 months, Freddie Mac said in its third-quarter refinance report Tuesday. The GSE’s refi report – which is compiled from data on sample properties in which Freddie has funded two successive conventional, first-mortgage loans, with the second being a refinancing – found that 37 percent of refi borrowers shortened their loan term. This was up 5 percent from the previous quarter and the highest since 1992, the report said.

A significant but continued decline in GSE refinance activity helped contribute to an overall dip in the volume of single-family mortgages securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in October, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. Fannie and Freddie issued $67.7 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities in October, a 13.8 percent decline from September but a 2.9 percent rise for the first 10 months of 2013. Deliveries of refinance loans to Fannie and Freddie have declined steadily since January.

Republicans on Capitol Hill might be laying the groundwork for legislation that could scale back the application of the disparate impact theory of legal liability in mortgage lending. Currently, there is no active legislation to that effect pending in the U.S. House of Representatives or the Senate, and industry lobbyists said there is no such interest underfoot. But just the fact that the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing this week on disparate impact in general had some Democrat supporters of the theory a bit anxious. “My hope is...

Wells Fargo once again ranked first among issuers with a market share of 29.6 percent, followed by Chase Home Finance (12.1 percent), and U.S. Bank (3.8 percent).

Under the new guidance, lenders must report to FHA all findings of fraud and material misrepresentations concerning the origination, underwriting or servicing of a loan that the lender is unable to mitigate or resolve.

Once again, the Supreme Court of the United States has been denied an opportunity to weigh in and potentially set a national standard over the question of whether disparate impact cases can be brought under the Fair Housing Act, and perhaps the Equal Credit Opportunity Act as well. Late last week – just three weeks before oral arguments were set to be presented to the nation’s highest court – the Mount Holly town council voted to approve the settlement in Township of Mount Holly v. Mt. Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, Inc. The case...