Two major banks recently launched their own 3 percent downpayment programs, which stakeholders say could shift volume from FHA to the government-sponsored enterprises. How much volume though remains unclear, analysts say. Last week, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase rolled out their respective low downpayment programs for first-time homebuyers and low-to-moderate-income families, which require only 3 percent down. Neither program involves the FHA, and they appear designed to pick up where Wells and Chase left off when they decided to cut back on their FHA business in order to reduce liability risk. Wells and Chase are among several major banks and nonbanks that have coughed up billions of dollars in settlements with the federal government in the last couple of years to resolve allegations of fraud under the False Claims Act and violations of ...
FHA lenders are breathing a sigh of relief in the wake of a legal opinion from the Department of Housing and Urban Development which effectively invalidates the Inspector General’s position on FHA loans with downpayment assistance provided by state and local housing finance agencies. HUD Deputy Secretary/FHA Commissioner Edward Golding’s recent memorandum left no doubt as to the eligibility of loans partially financed through HFAs’ downpayment assistance programs for FHA insurance. The memo also refuted the IG’s views on downpayment assistance involving “premium pricing” and rejected the severe financial penalties the IG had recommended against the lender. The dispute arose from a 2015 IG audit of NOVA Financial & Investment Corp. The audit report concluded that gift funds obtained through an HFA downpayment assistance program and used to help pay for ...
New Day USA, an exclusive VA lender, is building up its purchase mortgage-lending platform to help grow its VA business by the end of 2018, according to the firm’s top financial adviser.Based in Fulton, MD, New Day is developing its purchase-lending capability to help grow its overall VA business by 20 to 25 percent annually, said Joseph Murin, New Day’s chairman emeritus. “We’re growing slowly,” he said. “We’d rather walk before we run.” An approved VA lender, New Day’s focus has been almost entirely on cash-out refinancing. New Day currently ranks 21st among Ginnie Mae VA sellers for the first quarter of 2016, according to Inside FHA/VA Lending’s database. The company closed the first quarter with $463.1 million in VA loans, up 22.8 percent from 4Q15 and up a whopping 87.6 percent on a year-over-year basis. “We are spending a lot of time developing and understanding the ...
The Government Accountability Office has recommended actions to strengthen management of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s single-family mortgage guarantee program. In recent years, the USDA Rural Housing Service single-family mortgage guarantee program has grown significantly, and RHS currently manages a guaranteed rural-home portfolio of more than $100 billion. A recent GAO audit found that the estimated credit subsidy costs, or expected net lifetime costs, of the USDA Rural Housing Service’s guaranteed single-family mortgages have increased substantially in recent years due to high losses during the housing crisis. For example, the FY 2013 and 2014 reestimates – federal agencies are required by law to reestimate the credit subsidy annually – indicated higher than expected costs of $804 million and $615 million, respectively, compared with prior reestimates. In addition, the ...
Eleven lenders paid a total of $152.1 million in civil penalties and settlements while three others lost their FHA approval for various violations of FHA requirements, according to the Mortgagee Review Board’s latest report on administrative actions taken against FHA-approved lenders. As required by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the report summarizes the disciplinary actions imposed by the board on FHA lenders from Oct. 1, 2014, to Sept. 30, 2015. These actions include $151.7 million in settlements and $370,119 in civil money penalties, withdrawals of FHA approval, suspensions, probations and reprimands. Allied First Bank of Oswego, IL, agreed to pay a $17,000 civil money penalty for improper use of FHA’s name in certain correspondence and for failure to notify HUD of a consent order entered into by the bank and federal and state banking regulators. The MRB voted to ...
A California-based mortgage lender and six senior executives have agreed to pay $12.7 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve allegations they schemed to defraud investors in the sale of residential mortgage-backed securities with a Ginnie Mae guarantee. The SEC complaint alleged that, from March 2011 to March 2015, Ginnie Mae issuer First Mortgage Corp. and its top executives pulled current performing loans out of Ginnie Mae MBS. The issuer falsely claimed that the loans were delinquent so that it could recycle them as newly issued MBS and sell them at a profit. FMC allegedly issued Ginnie Mae MBS prospectuses with false and misleading information by using a Ginnie Mae rule that allowed issuers to repurchase seriously delinquent loans. In addition, the SEC complaint alleged that FMC deliberately delayed depositing checks from borrowers who had been behind on ...
RHS Issues Final Rule on Liquidation Value Appraisals. The Rural Housing Service has adopted a final rule amending its current regulation for the Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program (SFHGLP) regarding the use of liquidation value appraisal. In order to reduce overall processing time, lower cost and expedite claim submission, lender/servicers will now be required to order the liquidation value appraisal, instead of the RHS, to estimate a loss claim against the SFHGLP. Currently, if real estate-owned property remains unsold by the lender at the end of the prescribed marketing period, RHS orders a liquidation value appraisal and applies an acquisition and management resale factor to estimate holding and disposition cost. Under the final rule, the lender/servicer must do the ordering. The costs associated with obtaining the liquidation value appraisal can then be included in the ...
Refinance lending gained strength in the first quarter of 2016 and surpassed origination of purchase-money mortgages, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. Mortgage lenders originated an estimated $195 billion of refinance loans in the first three months of this year, an 11.4 percent increase over the fourth quarter. With purchase-mortgage production slumping by 11.9 percent to $185 billion, the refi market accounted for 51.3 percent of total originations for the first quarter. Although purchase-mortgage lending is expected to pick up considerably in the second and third quarters, the refi market isn’t...[Includes three data tables]
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