The Department of Housing and Urban Development inspector general, over the last several weeks, has reported a series of final civil actions that resulted in an enforcement action or monetary settlement between an FHA lender and the federal government. On Oct. 6, the IG announced the results of an audit of TXL Mortgage Corp., a direct endorsement lender, in Houston. The audit found TXL in violation of HUD requirements and that it had no acceptable quality-control plan in place. Specifically, 16 of the 20 sample loans the IG reviewed did not comply with HUD standards. Of the 16 loans, eight had significant underwriting defects and failed to qualify for FHA mortgage insurance. Two loans qualified but were over-insured, according to the report. As a result, TXL exposed HUD to more than $713,000 in unnecessary insurance risk and caused the department to incur more than ...

Ginnie Mae rode a surging purchase-mortgage market and heavy refinance activity to new production records during the third quarter of 2016. The agency issued a whopping $145.14 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of MBS disclosures. That figure is based on pool-level disclosures that reveal exact principal balance amounts and it includes securities backed by FHA home-equity conversion mortgages. The data in the table below are based on truncated loan-level disclosures and do not include HECM activity. New Ginnie MBS issuance in the third quarter was up 15.7 percent from the previous quarter. Ginnie MBS production set three consecutive monthly records during the third quarter, culminating in a huge $52.46 billion month in September. Purchase-mortgage activity was the key driver, but the ... [ 4 charts ]

Requiring an undercapitalized issuer to repurchase uninsured performing mortgages out of a mortgage-backed securities pool could increase risk to the federal government, warned Ginnie Mae. Responding to an adverse audit report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General, Ginnie said that while it generally accepts the IG’s recommendations, forcing an undercapitalized issuer to buy out performing loans and either hold them in portfolio or sell them at a substantial loss would put the government at greater risk. “This is something we need to be alert to in certain cases,” the agency said. According to the report, Ginnie improperly allowed more than $49 million of single-family mortgages with terminated insurance to remain in its MBS pools for more than one year without obtaining FHA coverage. The IG warned Ginnie could be on the ...

VA lenders are reporting faster turnaround times in processing borrower requests for certificates of eligibility (COEs). At a Ginnie Mae summit in Washington, DC, recently, agency officials said more than 70 percent of COEs are issued instantaneously. That is a vast improvement from six years ago, when it took VA about 26 days to issue a COE, said VA Acting Director Jeffrey London. A certificate of eligibility verifies a veteran’s eligibility for the VA home loan benefit. VA’s electronic applications can verify eligibility and issue a COE in a matter of seconds. “Previously we were getting less than 40 percent electronic submissions of COE requests,” London recalled. “We have improved our system so that this year alone, 95.6 percent of our COEs are issued electronically. Out of that 95.6 percent, 65 percent are issued automatically with no human involvement.” London said the ...

Lenders are optimistic about a proposed rule that would reinstate FHA spot financing in unapproved condominium projects, saying this could be the spark that would jump-start the slow condo market.The proposed rules would clarify and modify certain FHA rules to kick-start condominium lending activity, and allow some flexibility in existing approval standards. Key proposals include the reinstatement of spot approvals in unapproved condominium developments and extending the effective recertification period for condo approvals to three years, rather than the current two-year requirement. Prior to 2009, spot approval allowed a buyer to use FHA financing to purchase a unit in an unapproved condo project, but the HUD approval process was expensive and time consuming. Consequently, few lenders were able to take advantage of the spot-approval program. The Department of ...

The initial material defect rate of FHA loans has increased to 50 percent in the third quarter of 2016 from the previous quarter, according to the latest FHA Lender Insight report on quality control. A good portion of the defective mortgage loans, however, has been mitigated during the post-endorsement technical review process, the report indicated. In the second quarter, the initial material defect rate had been flat, averaging 47.4 percent over the last eight quarters. The latest report show the top five mitigated findings, which reflect the number of initially unacceptable ratings and the number of findings mitigated for loans between April and June, 2016. Some 6,312 FHA loans comprised the sample, and they consisted of purchase loans (71.0 percent), streamline refinance (13.5 percent), rate and term refis (9.0 percent), and Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (6.7 percent). In addition, ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs is urging VA lenders, borrowers and other participants in its loan guaranty program to adopt recommended standards, equipment and activities to reduce water and energy usage and to ease the impact of natural disasters. The VA has recommended wind-hazard standards, resilient building and retrofitting standards, a water- and energy-saving program, and property-and-energy conservation strategies to help VA borrowers protect their homes against storms, flooding, earthquakes and other calamities. VA made clear it allows, but does not require, any of the recommended standards, strategies or equipment. The programs are strictly voluntary, it said. The agency noted the increasing incidence of extreme weather events, earthquakes and flooding, which makes planning and building in the most resilient and economically feasible ways all the ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs adopted without change its interim final rule increasing the maximum amount of civil fines it can assess on lenders and other offenders for violations of agency loan-guaranty rules and regulations. Under the interim final rule VA issued for comment back in June, maximum civil monetary penalties would increase from $10,000 to $21,563 for false loan-guaranty certifications. Civil fines for fraudulent claims or statements in any VA program would increase from $5,500 to $10,781. The VA published the interim final rule on June 22, 2016, to implement the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 and to improve the effectiveness of civil fines and maintain their deterrent effect. The new penalty amounts became ...

Ginnie Mae FY 2016 Highlights. “So far, we’ve pretty much broken every record,” said a Ginnie Mae spokesperson. Total mortgage-backed securities issuance for FY 2016 was $490.3 billion, “an all-time high by a pretty wide margin,” according to the spokesperson. September MBS issuance was also at an all-time high: $54.8 billion. Ginnie Mae commitment authority for the fiscal year was $430.2 billion. Approximately 2.3 million mortgage loans worth $462 billion underlay Ginnie’s single-family MBS pools in FY 2016. Of this total, $278 billion (1.4 million loans) were purchase mortgages, and $184 billion (0.9 million loans) were refinances or modified loans. Of the purchase dollar volume, first-time homebuyers accounted for $200 billion (1.1 million loans). Of the $462 billion single-family MBS pools, FHA accounted for 57.1 percent ($264 billion), VA, 38.8 percent ($179 billion), and rural housing loans, 3.9 percent ($18 billion). New California Law Protects Spouses of HECM Borrowers from ‘Widow Foreclosure.’ On Sept. 29, 2016, California Gov. Jerry Brown, D, signed Senate Bill 1150 into law to protect widows, widowers and other heirs of mortgage borrowers from unnecessary foreclosures.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is working on a change to its existing streamline refinancing policy to address a problem that is giving VA and Ginnie Mae the fits. Under the VA’s qualified-mortgage rule, a VA borrower must wait six months and show six months’ worth of mortgage payments before they can refinance into an IRRRL (Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan) and take advantage of the lower rate. However, it seems not all VA lenders are adhering to the rule and that a good number are refinancing veterans into IRRRLs even before the mandatory seasoning period ends for fear interest rates might rise and the borrower might not benefit from the lower rate. “I’ve redone the numbers in 20 different directions on how much a borrower would save if they had to wait two more months and the rate went up a quarter of a point because they lost those two months ...