The White House this week officially nominated industry veteran Brian Montgomery to be the next FHA commissioner and assistant secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In a related development, the Senate on Thursday confirmed the nomination of Pamela Pantenaude as HUD deputy secretary, three months to the day the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs approved her nomination. Montgomery, currently vice chairman of the Washington-based business-consulting firm The Collingwood Group, is no stranger to the job. He previously served as FHA commissioner/HUD assistant secretary during the second Bush administration and as acting HUD secretary in January 2009. As FHA commissioner, Montgomery lead legislative efforts to preserve the nation’s affordable rental housing stock while reducing rental-assistance costs and the cost of ...

The Mortgage Bankers Association has recommended steps to address the VA appraiser shortage and increased appraisal turn times. The industry group made its recommendations in a recent letter to Jeffrey London, executive director of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Loan Guaranty Service, based on a roundtable discussion between MBA and other industry stakeholders in March. Stakeholders expressed their concern for the lack of VA appraisers and longer waiting periods for appraisal reports. Appraiser shortage is an ongoing problem for the VA, and has resulted in delayed loan closings, particularly in highly rural areas. Some states, like Oregon, have very few appraisers, the MBA pointed out.“This delay may force veterans to choose other loan programs to meet certain deadlines or face other adverse outcomes,” the MBA letter warned. On the other hand, the ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced a final rule that will allow it to establish reasonable fees to cover the costs of originating and servicing a VA-backed vendee loan. A vendee loan enables a borrower to purchase a VA real estate-owned property. Vendee financing is not a veteran benefit but is available to any purchaser, including veterans and servicemembers. In addition, vendee financing is available for non-owner and owner-occupied residential properties. An owner-occupied purchase can be financed with as little as zero percent downpayment while a non-owner-occupied purchase requires a minimum 5 percent downpayment. In addition, for non-owner-occupied purchases, investors may use 75 percent of anticipated rent, based on an appraiser’s estimate, to offset the subject property monthly payment. Furthermore, investors must have experience in ...

Compliance attorneys are calling for legislative changes to prevent possible misuse of the False Claims Act that could result in settlements that could be financially devastating to mortgage lenders. Concerns about possible government misuse of FCA provisions are evident in the statutory qualifiers that are already embedded in the existing statute, according to a recent analysis by Krista Cooley and Laurence Platt, attorneys and partners in the Washington, DC, office of Mayer Brown. The qualifiers are in the main provision of the FCA that the Department of Justice has used against mortgage lenders and servicers, the attorneys said. The provision imposes liability on any person who “knowingly presents, or causes to be presented, a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval” or “knowingly makes, uses, or causes to be made or used, a false record or statement material to a false or ...

The FHA will provide lenders that originate Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans the option to view and print unsigned HECM counseling certificates in FHA Connection starting Sept. 18, 2017. While the lender may still take the initial loan application, the lender can only begin to process it once the counseling is complete, as evidenced by a completed HECM counseling certificate that contains signatures of both the counselor and borrower. Lenders that chose to use this option will be required to establish procedures to obtain and document authorization from the HECM borrower to access the counseling certificate in FHA Connection. In addition, lenders must certify that a borrower authorization to view the counseling certificate was obtained. Lenders must follow the guidance on processing HECM loans contained in the HUD Handbook, the FHA said. To access HECM counseling certificates, lenders will ...

DOL’s Overtime Rule Dead – For Now. A federal district court in Texas recently struck down an Obama administration proposal that would have made millions of people eligible for overtime pay. Judge Amos Mazzant of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on Aug. 31 invalidated the DOL’s pending overtime regulations, which would have raised the salary threshold exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Obama administration finalized the proposed regulations in May last year but was unable to implement them after Mazzant granted a request for injunction filed by the Plano Chamber of Commerce and 55 other business groups last November. The business entities opposed the proposed rule, which would have raised the minimum salary threshold necessary to qualify for the FLSA’s overtime exemption. The salary threshold would have increased from ...

First-time homebuyers accounted for $170.3 billion of securitized purchase mortgages during the first half of 2017, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of loan-level data for mortgage-backed securities issued by Ginnie mae, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Purchase-mortgage origination to first-time homebuyers was up 15.7 percent year-over-year and comprised 50.3 percent of total purchase-mortgage loans securitized during the six-month period. FHA accounted for 36.8 percent ($61.4 billion) of first-time homebuyer purchase mortgages delivered into agency pools from beginning to midyear, while conventional purchase mortgages with private mortgage insurance accounted for 28.3 percent ($48.3 billion) over the same period. FHA and private MI are the two leading mortgage insurers for first-time homebuyers. Together, they have provided mortgage insurance for nearly ... [Charts]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development this week announced changes to the FHA-insured reverse mortgage program, including a 200 basis point adjustment in the upfront mortgage insurance premium that may shut out some potential borrowers. HUD officials acknowledged during a press call that changes in both the upfront MIP and the HECM principal limit factors could reduce the number of borrowers initially by as much as 20 percent. Officials estimated that there are approximately 24 million seniors with untapped equity in their homes. “Overall, it is still a very large potential market,” said one official who spoke on background. “In the last few years, we did about 45,000 to 50,000 reverse mortgages annually. The net effect of all these changes is a better and safe HECM program for seniors. We’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out.” The revisions would help stabilize the ...

Working past age 62 is usually a less costly way to increase a senior’s Social Security benefit than borrowing a reverse mortgage, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In a report published last week, the CFPB warned that a strategy touted by financial consultants to seniors – borrowing a reverse mortgage loan to get more SS benefits later – could result in significant costs that may erase gains from delaying SS benefits. The strategy would require older homeowners to borrow a reverse mortgage at age 62, the minimum age a person can begin collecting SS benefits, in order to delay claiming such benefits. This means retirees would use the proceeds from a reverse mortgage to replace the money they would otherwise receive from SS in the years between 62 up to their full benefit age of 66 (for those born before 1960) and 67 (for those born after 1960), or their maximum ...

The FHA has issued guidance to clarify new servicing requirements in the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage final rule that will take effect on Sept. 17, 2017. The HECM final rule codifies previously issued policies as well as new policies contained in the HECM proposed rule published on May 19, 2016. The guidance provides more detail on three servicing policies contained in the HECM final rule that HUD published in the Federal Register on Jan. 19. These policy areas include default for unpaid property charges, sale of property securing a due and payable HECM, and cash-for-keys and relocation incentives. The comment period ends on Sept. 24. Specifically, the guidance clarifies when a lender must submit a due-and-payable request if a borrower is unable or unwilling to repay funds advanced by the lender to pay property charges. In addition, the guidance updates the ...