Ginnie Mae issued $93.41 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the first three months of 2016, an 8.6 percent drop from the previous quarter, according to a new Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of loan-level MBS data, excluding FHA reverse-mortgage activity. Early 2016 was the slowest market in a year for Ginnie MBS production, though it still was stronger than most of the agency’s pre-2015 business. And issuance in the first quarter of 2016 was 17.0 percent ahead of the volume produced during the same period last year. The soft spot in the first quarter was FHA lending, especially purchase-mortgage activity. Issuers delivered $54.44 billion of FHA loans into Ginnie MBS during the period, a 12.1 percent drop from the fourth quarter, including a 15.0 percent decline in FHA purchase mortgages. Securitization of VA loans fell by a ... [4 charts].

Approximately 300 FHA lenders are seeing their recertifications held up because they failed to report in a timely manner events or changes that may affect their eligibility to participate in FHA programs.Delays are occurring because lenders have failed to notify the FHA of material events as soon as they have occurred and waited until the annual recertification to report them, according to industry sources. Under rules of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a notice of material event alerts the agency to a significant change to the information provided by the lender at application that may affect its status as an FHA-approved lender. The department strongly encourages lenders to notify FHA within 10 days of the event to prevent delays during the annual recertification. Each FHA lender must complete the annual recertification process in order to retain its FHA approval. Lenders must ...

Policy changes are underway to prevent nonprofit groups from gaining an unfair advantage over legitimate investors in purchasing real estate-owned properties under the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s single-family property disposition program. An audit conducted by the HUD inspector general found that certain nonprofits were acting as investors while purchasing REO homes through HUD’s distressed-asset sales program. While this may seem to be a case of nonprofits gaming the system, the IG said no regulations were violated because program requirements did not explicitly bar nonprofits from acting as investors during the exclusive listing period. HUD’s distressed-asset sales program is designed to clear the department’s REO inventory in a manner that expands homeownership opportunities, strengthens neighborhoods and communities, and ensures a ...

The FHA has issued new, more permissive loss-mitigation guidelines for Home Equity Conversion Mortgages, including an optional extension for mortgagees when submitting due-and-payable requests. Additionally, the guidelines allow mortgagees to cure a HECM borrower’s taxes and/or insurance defaults as long as the FHA incurs no cost and the mortgagee agrees to refrain from seeking loan assignment for at least three years. The guidelines further remove a previous restriction prohibiting the use of the permissive loss-mitigation options announced in Mortgagee Letter 2015-11 for borrowers in foreclosure. Accordingly, for HECM loans that were in the process of foreclosure prior to the issuance of ML-2015-11, mortgagees may assess those borrowers for a repayment plan in accordance with the mortgagee letter. The repayment plan must have the ...

Cutting back on its FHA business helped reduce JPMorgan Chase’s foreclosure inventory but made it harder for the bank to meet its community reinvestment goals, according to the bank’s top executive. In a letter to shareholders, Jamie Dimon, president/CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said he would rather see the bank no longer service defaulted loans. “If we had our druthers, we would never service a defaulted mortgage again,” he wrote. “We do not want to be in the business of foreclosure because it is exceedingly painful for our customers, and it is difficult, costly and painful to us and our reputation.” Chase has cut back on FHA lending and has reinstated overlays in response to stiff penalties it paid to resolve False Claims Act allegations brought by the federal government. In 2014, Chase agreed to a $614 million settlement with the Department of Justice over allegations of ...

Debt collection, mortgages and credit reporting are the top three most-complained-about products and services in 2015, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s fourth annual report on servicemembers’ and veterans’ complaints. Such complaints comprised a significant share of complaints from members of the military and their families logged by the CFPB last year. In 2015, the CFPB received 13 percent more military complaints compared to 2014, noted Barbara Mishkin, consumer finance attorney at Ballard Spahr. Of the 19,200 complaints received from members of the military last year, 46 percent (8,900) involved debt collection. The report indicates that military consumers submitted debt-collection complaints at almost twice the rate of the general consumer population, said Mishkin. Of the 8,900 debt-collection complaints, 44 percent involved attempts to collect a debt that the ...

Ginnie Mae securitization of jumbo mortgage loans with a VA guaranty rose significantly in 2015 despite a volume drop-off in the fourth quarter, according to Inside FHA/VA Lending’s analysis of agency data. Year-over-year results saw an almost 60 percent increase in Ginnie Mae mortgage securitization backed by VA jumbo loans. This was slightly dampened by 17.1 percent drop in VA MBS production in the fourth quarter from the previous quarter. All top-five VA jumbo securitizers – Wells Fargo, Freedom Mortgage Corp., PennyMac Corp., U.S. Bank, and Quicken Loans – reported significant drops quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year. Wells Fargo delivered a total of $5.0 billion in VA jumbo loans into Ginnie pools, making it the leading jumbo securitizer in that segment. This accounted for 17.7 percent of the market. Freedom Mortgage ended the year with $2.1 billion in ... [ Charts ]

The Department of Veterans Affairs has issued additional lender guidance for dealing with the public water contamination problem in Flint, MI. The guidance expands on the agency’s minimum requirements for properties backed by VA loans. The guidance refers to policy in the VA Lender’s Handbook which requires properties to have “a continuing supply of safe and potable water for drinking and other household uses,” before being approved for a VA-backed home loan. In the VA’s view, safe and potable water also refers to water used for bathing, showering and sanitary uses. Properties not in compliance with this requirement will not be eligible for the VA guaranty. Proper mitigation of lead-contaminated water must include a central filtering system that is acceptable to local health authorities and that can provide safe and potable water. Appraisers must comment and adjust for any ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs FY 2017 budget is seeking $34 million for the VA Loan Electronic Reporting Interface (VALERI) to manage the 2.4 million VA mortgages in portfolio. VALERI connects VA with more than 225,000 approved mortgage servicers and an estimated 320,000 veteran borrowers. Specifically, the system is used to manage and monitor servicer and VA staff activities aimed at providing timely and appropriate loss-mitigation assistance to defaulted borrowers. Without these resources, approximately 90,000 veterans and their families would be in danger of losing their homes each year, the VA said. Furthermore, this could cost the VA $2.8 billion a year in additional expense. In addition, VALERI also supports payment of guaranty and acquisition claims.Meanwhile, starting March 19, VA servicers began using the new version of the bulk upload templates to ...

With only a few isolated exceptions, VA and FHA lending was up sharply across the country last year, outstripping the private mortgage insurance business in nearly every state of the U.S., according to a new analysis by Inside FHA/VA Lending. Overall, FHA single-family mortgages securitized by Ginnie Mae increased 60.5 percent from 2014 and VA production was up 39.4 percent. Meanwhile, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac posted a more subdued 26.2 percent increase in privately-insured loan volume. California remained the biggest mortgage market for the FHA, VA and private MIs, as well as uninsured mortgages. The FHA clearly won the mortgage insurance battle, boosting its share of insured loans in the Golden State from 41.1 percent in 2014 to 49.2 percent last year thanks to a whopping 89.8 percent jump in business. California had one of the highest concentrations of ... [ 3 charts ]