A recent recommendation by the House Financial Services Committee to the FHA to consider charging additional user fees to strengthen and protect the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund has raised questions in the industry as to what lawmakers meant by user fees. The FHA, apparently, has no authority to do so. In its recently published views and estimates related to the FY 2014 budget, the committee noted that while the FHA has increased its mortgage insurance premiums, lawmakers remain concerned that the agency has failed to make full use of its existing authorities to protect the health of the fund. The committee urged...
The Department of Housing and Development, and possibly Ginnie Mae, might be forced to place employees on furlough as a result of mandatory, across-the-board spending cuts scheduled to take effect on March 1. In recent testimony before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said sequestration would result in forced employee leaves or other personnel actions, which would affect many of the 9,000 HUD employees in 81 field offices around the country. Donovan said...
The proposed Public Guarantor to replace the government-sponsored enterprises would not only provide an explicit backstop for qualifying MBS in a post-GSE world, it would also serve as a regulator of sorts under terms spelled out in a housing policy paper issued this week. The report by the Bipartisan Policy Centers Housing Commission called for a far greater role for the private sector in the mortgage market, a continued but limited role for the federal government, the graduated elimination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and reform of the FHA. The BPCs plan calls for...
Improving house prices and increased availability of private mortgage insurance should provide greater opportunity to FHA borrowers to refinance to conventional loans, according to a recent report from Barclays Research. FHA annual mortgage insurance premiums are set to go up another 10 basis points on April 1 for most loans, except mortgages originated before June 2009 that are being refinanced through FHAs streamline refi program. Those loans pay just 1 basis point in upfront premium and 55 bps in annual premiums. The most recent available data through November 2012 show...
House Republicans may be able to pass tough FHA reform and solvency legislation out of committee but they may not have enough votes on the House floor or in the Senate to sustain such a bill, according to industry sources. Even after two successive hearings in the House Financial Services Committee this month, there has been no clear indication from Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, as to which proposals might go into a legislative package of FHA reforms. Hensarling is said to be operating with a very strong hand, and if it were up to him entirely, he would draft legislation that would contain some ...
Wells Fargo suffered a big legal setback after a federal judge denied its request to enforce a consent judgment under last years landmark $25 billion servicing settlement to prevent a New York lawsuit from proceeding. Judge Rosemary Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected Wells Fargos argument that the new government suit filed in Manhattan district court was improper because it violated the consent judgment against Wells Fargo and flies in the face of the judgments liability release provision. Wells Fargo argued that the allegations in a civil mortgage fraud suit filed by ...
The VA is on pace in 2013 to shatter an old mortgage production record set in 1994, according to agency officials. Mike Frueh, director of the Department of Veterans Affairs Home Loan Guaranty Services, said the VA is trending to do just about 600,000 home loans even though the home buying-and-selling season, which typically kicks off in the spring, has not yet started. The last time the VA originated that many home loans was in 1994, a banner year for VA mortgage lending to veterans and active members of the military. FY 2012 became the second best year for VA loan originations with ...