FHA endorsements fell 22.1 percent from the fourth quarter as the refinancing wave of 2010 ended, as did production in other channels in the first quarter of 2011. The FHA endorsed $57.6 billion in 1-4 family mortgage loans in the first quarter, including reverse mortgages, down from $74.0 billion the previous quarter. It lost some market share to VA, whose total originations were up 26.2 percent from the first quarter of last year. The agency reported a 33.8 percent increase in applications in March ... [includes one data chart and one graph]

Consumer advocates called on Congress to extend national mortgage servicing standards to all servicers, including those of government-insured home loans. Testifying before the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development recently, Diane Thompson, of counsel to the National Consumer Law Center, said loans made by the FHA, the VA and the Rural Housing Services are generally aimed at ...

FHA loans in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware performed better in 2008 and in 2009 than in 2006 and 2007 as credit quality became stronger, according to a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The findings should allay concerns of policymakers in Washington, DC, that FHA defaults have risen during the housing crisis and may put the federal mortgage insurance fund in peril, the study said. Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, one of the data sources used by Fed analysts, indicate that overall lending patterns in the Third District states have ...

Effective July 1, reporting of tax information to investors of Ginnie Mae securities will move from e-Access to the Ginnie Mae Enterprise-Wide Portal (GMEP), which now serves as the single access point for all of the agency's online business applications. The e-Access function for uploading quarterly widely held fixed investment trust (WHFIT) reporting files for investors would no longer ...

High-touch servicer Nationstar Mortgage announced this week that it plans to raise up to $400.0 million via an initial public offering. The servicer - owned by Fortress Investment Group - primarily focuses on defaulted agency mortgages. Nationstar serviced a $64.2 billion portfolio as of the end of 2010, with subprime mortgages accounting for a 14.6 percent share. Reps. Gary Miller, R-CA and Brad Sherman, D-CA, recently introduced legislation to permanently increase the conforming loan limits. Few analysts believe that H.R. 1754, "the Preserving Equal Access to Mortgage Finance Programs Act," will gain much traction considering...

The Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development last week announced they had filed a civil mortgage fraud lawsuit against Deutsche Bank and its wholly owned subsidiary, MortgageIT, over some of its FHA lending practices...

The U.S. government is suing Deutsche Bank and its mortgage unit for more than $1 billion for allegedly abusing their direct endorsement authority by duping the FHA into insuring ineligible mortgage loans. The Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development filed a...

The consent orders agreed to recently by 14 mortgage servicers and two third-party service providers will have little impact on the servicing of FHA loans, according to compliance experts. The only areas where the orders might create additional obligations are requirements that the servicer establish a...

A provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act allowing federal agencies that insure mortgage loans to develop rules defining “qualified mortgages” (QM) for their loans may not be ideal for investors, according to industry attorneys. In addition to a recent Federal Reserve proposed rule on ability to repay ...