The Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating reports that a loan officer of an approved FHA lender had participated in a reverse mortgage borrower’s counseling session, a practice HUD frowns upon but does not directly prohibit. A HUD representative declined to provide details but acknowledged that the report was part of informal discussions between department officials and stakeholders. “That information … has not been officially released in any form,” he said. “Once the details are finalized, we will be advising stakeholders.” The National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association posted the ...
The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced new security measures to ensure that only authorized lenders and servicers have access to mortgage-related data. Guidance issued earlier this month establishes new security procedures for resetting users’ PIN numbers and validating their identities. Users must be validated as an employee of the lender/servicer that seeks access to the VA’s Veteran Information Portal (VIP). The VA will provide each approved lender/servicer with a list of previous users for validation. Upon completion of the validation, the list must be ...
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has sweetened the pot to encourage more investors to participate in an FHA program for disposing of real estate-owned properties to ease HUD’s housing inventory. HUD announced it is raising the discount for REO properties under its First Look Sales Method to 15 percent from 10 percent. Properties include those that do not meet the standards for FHA insurance. The special program was launched in 2010 to give preference to eligible purchasers under the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) to ...
Some FHA lenders are seeing new opportunities in the distressed property market as they offer new or expand on existing 203(k) rehabilitation mortgage insurance products. Houston-based Envoy Mortgage, a full-service mortgage banker with retail branches across the country, has broadened its FHA 203(k) product line to include a full 203(k) option. The option allows borrowers to devote more funds for repair and renovation, which are rolled into the mortgage amount. The full 203(k) option is a step up from what Envoy is already offering – a “streamline” 203(k) program designed for borrowers that have ...
Rule for Selling Government Mortgages to Fannie Mae Updated. Eligibility for delivery of mortgage loans backed by FHA, VA and the Department of Agriculture is now available on a negotiated basis only, Fannie Mae announced in a recent update to its Selling Guide (Announcement SEL-2013-01). The change is effective for all government loans, including whole loans sold to Fannie on or after May 1, 2013, and government loans in mortgage-backed securities with issue dates on or after May 1. Genworth to Delink Struggling Mortgage Insurance Operations from Holding Company. Genworth Financial plans to ...
During the final three months of 2012, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized some $52.72 billion of single-family home loans that were covered by private mortgage insurance, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis. That total represented 14.4 percent of the business done by the two government-sponsored enterprises during the fourth quarter – although there was significant variation among the GSEs’ top sellers in terms of the share of their deliveries covered by PMI. Some $8.42 billion of PMI-insured mortgages were pooled...[Includes one data chart]
Is the Mortgage Servicing Rule Next? The CFPB has a field hearing scheduled for January 17 in Atlanta, and the industry scuttlebutt is that the bureau might release its mortgage servicing rulemaking sometime the day before. Last week, the CFPB released to the press, on whatfs known as an gembargoedh basis, many of the details of its gqualified mortgageh/ability-to-repay final rule on the afternoon before the bureaufs Jan. 10 mortgage policy field hearing in Baltimore, MD. The actual final rule, however, was not...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week issued a long-awaited final rule that establishes ability-to-repay and qualified mortgage (QM) standards, as well as a second, temporary category of QMs for government-backed mortgages to avoid market disruption. At the same time, the CFPB sought comment on a proposed rule that would exclude new and existing FHA, VA and Rural Housing Service (U.S. Department of Agriculture) programs that facilitate refinancings for borrowers at risk of delinquency or default. The temporary QM category was spurred by CFPB’s concern about the ...
The Obama administration is making a renewed push in 2013 for a government-backed non-agency refinance program, potentially the third major phase of the Home Affordable Refinance Program. However, there appear to be numerous hurdles to using the government-sponsored enterprises to help refi non-agency borrowers and a similar proposal using the FHA has yet to gain widespread support in Congress. Under the latest HARP 3.0 proposal, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would refinance certain non-agency mortgages with negative equity, waive mortgage insurance requirements and charge the borrowers higher guaranty fees. The proposal would require approval from Congress. “After taking significant taxpayer bailouts, the GSEs’ fiscal condition is...
Mortgage industry participants are confident that newly confirmed FHA Commissioner Carol Galante will deliver on reforms she committed to in an effort to reach out to Republican critics. Eighteen Senate Republicans veered away from their hardline party colleagues to help Carol Galante secure confirmation of her nomination as the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s chief overseer of the FHA mortgage insurance program and overlord of housing policies. Galante broke through the GOP firewall Dec. 30 after the Senate voted 69 to 24 to approve her nomination. She needed at least 60 votes to ...
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