Despite the bad press and the elimination of the standard fixed-rate reverse mortgage product from the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program, reverse mortgages will continue to thrive simply because people grow old, former Ginnie Mae chief Joe Murin told Inside FHA Lending.
Inside Mortgage Finance shortly will publish its final 4Q ranking of FHA lenders, but it appears that the October-December period was one of the strongest in terms of loan production in quite some time ...plus other mortgage briefs.
HUD is investigating reports that a loan officer of an approved FHA lender had participated in a reverse mortgage borrowers counseling session, a practice HUD frowns upon.
Underwater homeowners who have remained current on their payments will be able to relinquish their houses and cancel their debt under the terms of a new GSE policy change to take effect in March.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development this week announced the latest changes designed to bolster the solvency of the FHA and ease Congress fear of a potential taxpayer bailout. The announcement is in connection with additional reforms, which FHA Commissioner Carol Galante committed to in an agreement with Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN. In a deal that cleared the way to her confirmation as FHA chief, Galante promised to have the measures in place by the end of the month to better manage risk and strengthen the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. As expected, HUD is...
FHA reported $21 billion of new residential endorsements in November, down from the previous month but up substantially from the same period a year ago. Fixed-rate mortgages accounted for 80 pecent of the total. For details see the new edition of Inside FHA Lending.