President Obama has named Carol Galante as acting FHA commissioner and assistant secretary for housing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Galante was most recently HUD deputy assistant secretary for multifamily housing. She will replace Robert Ryan, who most recently also served as Acting FHA Commissioner and Assistant Housing Secretary. Ryan will become senior advisor to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan on housing finance matters. In his new expanded role, Ryan will serve as HUD’s leaderon the interagency housing deputies’ team. He will develop, among other things, the department’s view regarding a long-term plan for...

Ginnie Mae has revised guidance for determining whether a loan is eligible for its mortgage-backed securities program. According to APM 11-12, effective for all securities with an issue date of June 1, and forward, all loans pooled in Ginnie Mae single-family securities must meet certain criteria. Only loans backing bond consolidation pools are exempt from the revised guidance. Beginning June 1, all loans underlying Ginnie Mae issuances must not be more than one month overdue and unpaid on the pooled mortgages. For example, if a Ginnie Mae MBS issued on Jan. 1 had a pooling date of Dec. 28, the loan must be paid through November in order to be...

The Obama administration is requiring FHA to participate in special program that extends forbearance periods for unemployed homeowners from four to 12 months to help them avoid foreclosure while seeking re-employment. The current unemployment forbearance programs have mandatory periods that are inadequate for most unemployed borrowers, said Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan. Servicers participating in the Making Home Affordable Program may also be directed to extend the minimum forbearance period to 12 months wherever possible under regulatory or investor guidelines, Donovan added. Specifically...

Ginnie Mae issuance fell both on a quarterly and year-to-year basis as new data reflect the continuing slowdown in FHA loan production, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance MBS Database. Ginnie Mae issuers combined for $149.8 billion in MBS issuance at midpoint of 2011, down 16.4 percent from the same period last year, and down 10.5 percent on a quarterly basis as MBS production dropped to $70.7 billion in the second quarter from $79.1 billion in the previous quarter. The top issuers accounted for 94.3 percent of Ginnie Mae’s total MBS output for the first six months. Of that share, 77.4 percent belonged to...

Overlooking investor overlays in mortgage loan underwriting can be quite costly and could expose lenders to regulatory risk and liability. iServe Residential Lending, a retail mortgage banker in San Diego, believes it has found the ultimate solution to its underwriting problems, especially with regards to investor overlays, including FHA, VA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. iServe, which originates conventional, government and jumbo loans, recently implemented PriceMyLoan, an automated underwriting and loan pricing tool from Insight Lending Solutions, the same folks who created TOTAL Scorecard for FHA. “PriceMyLoan is the only system that...

The Obama administration and Fannie Mae are requiring mortgage servicers to participate in special foreclosure prevention programs that extend forbearance periods for unemployed homeowners from 12 to 24 months to help them avoid foreclosure while seeking re-employment. The current unemployment forbearance programs have mandatory periods that are inadequate for most unemployed borrowers, said Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan. The FHA will extend the forbearance period for unemployed homeowners to 12 months. Servicers participating in the Making Home Affordable Program may also be directed to extend the minimum forbearance period to...

Ginnie Mae has made some changes regarding the collection and reporting of data on the underlying collateral that backs outstanding Ginnie Mae MBS. The goal is to expand the type of data collected at pool issuance to provide greater transparency and more relevant information to investors. The technical changes were laid out this week for Ginnie Mae program participants during a webinar hosted by the agency. Some of the changes relate...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is conducting an in-depth review of mortgage lenders, including those that pose the highest risk, in anticipation of a drastic reduction in the number of FHA lenders because of recent FHA reform measures. Responding to a recent report by the HUD Office of the Inspector General on the FHA lender recertification process, HUD said its Lender Approval and Recertification Division has begun manual reviews of 200 FHA-approved lenders that could potentially spell trouble for the agency. The more detailed reviews are part of HUD’s implementation of a final lender-related rule issued in June last year. The rule increased...

Two U.S. senators and their staffs are working with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to ensure that FHA policies regarding interest charges protect borrowers. Sens. Ben Cardin, D-MD, and Johnny Isakson, R-GA, and HUD are trying to resolve an existing FHA policy that allows lenders to charge interest on a mortgage loan through the end of the month, even if the borrower pays the loan off earlier in the month. The policy apparently aligns with Ginnie Mae’s guarantee to securities holders of a full month’s interest on a securitized FHA loan even if that loan is paid in full at the beginning of the month. Only the FHA has this sort of...

The Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act of 2008 covers loan originators working for entities that originate FHA or VA mortgage loans, according to a final rule issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Under the long-anticipated rule on state compliance with the SAFE Act, HUD clarified that even though the FHA and VA programs were created by federal statute and governed by federal regulations, the loans they insure or guarantee are originated for profit. Since FHA and VA loans are originated in the “commercial context,” the loan originators (LOs) are generally subject to the requirements of...