Fannie Mae Updates Reverse Mortgage Loan Servicing Manual. Fannie Mae has updated its reverse mortgage servicing manual with changes and clarifications to policies pertaining to Home Equity Conversion Mortgages. For HECMs, Fannie now requires servicers to place a real estate-owned hazard insurance policy upon completion of a foreclosure sale. It also outlined servicers’ responsibilities regarding the documentation and cancellation of REO hazard insurance claims; reimbursement of REO hazard insurance premiums; and remittance of insurance loss proceeds. The revised policy changes must be implemented no later than April 1, 2015. House Democrats Reintroduce Housing Finance Reform Bill. Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee have introduced legislation that would provide private and government risk-share coverage to all mortgages, create a ...

Security issuances backed by FHA and VA loans totaled $267.6 billion in 2014, with several large states accounting for a significant share of FHA/VA originations. An estimated $158.1 billion of FHA-insured loans, including modified loans, were securitized last year, with purchase home loans comprising most of the transactions. Approximately $30.0 billion of FHA refinance loans were securitized as well. The FHA MBS had an average loan-to-value ratio of 92.3 percent and a debt-to-income ratio of 40.1 percent. The average FICO score was 672.3, which was indicative of first-time homebuyers and borrowers with slightly tainted credit. First-ranked California, Texas (#2) and Florida (#3) combined for a total of $48.0 billion, which represented 30.3 percent of FHA loans in Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities in 2014. Fourth-ranked New York reported a total of $6.7 billion while ... [ 2 charts]

The FHA’s request for authority to require specialized subservicing in certain circumstances could be included in an appropriations bill rather than in housing-related legislation, according to Sen. Jack Reed, D-RI, ranking minority member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, HUD and other Related Agencies. Reed raised the possibility during a recent hearing on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s FY 2016 budget proposal. Among other things, the FHA has been seeking authority from Congress to require, in individual cases, inexperienced lender/servicers to transfer the function to a specialized servicer to better assist borrowers and reduce losses to the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. Allowing the FHA to require transfer of servicing will help more distressed homeowners stay in their homes and avoid foreclosure, said ...

Issuer registration for Ginnie Mae’s Issuer Performance Scorecard has been somewhat slower than expected, according to agency officials. The reason is unclear but only about 70 issuers so far have registered for Ginnie’s Issuer Operational Performance Profile (IOPP) tool since its launch on Feb. 17, 2015. Officials said they need to sign two-thirds more to get the IOPP system up to full speed. In a recent outreach call, officials urged those issuers who have not yet registered to contact their security officers for authority to access the Ginnie Mae Enterprise Portal (GMEP), the gateway to the IOPP system. Issuers must first be enrolled in GMEP before their security officer can grant them authority to access the IOPP system. The IOPP, also known as the Issuer Performance Scorecard, will rate each issuer’s operational performance and default management and compare them to ...

Ginnie Mae will restate its FY 2014 and FY 2013 financial statements after federal auditors withheld their opinion for lack of sufficient information because of accounting anomalies and poor servicing oversight. An audit report issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development Inspector General said the issues in the FY 2014 financial statement arose from servicing problems associated with a defaulted issuer’s portfolio, which Ginnie Mae is currently managing. The portfolio once belonged to the now-defunct Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, a Florida-based loan originator and a top Ginnie Mae issuer.The FHA suspended TBW in August 2009 due to its failure to submit a mandatory annual report and to disclose certain transactions that suggested fraud. Soon after, Ginnie Mae terminated TBW as an issuer/servicer and seized the company’s $25 billion Ginnie MBS portfolio. According to the IG report, ...

Although the new rules for surviving spouses of borrowers with FHA-insured reverse mortgages address many of the issues raised by non-borrowing spouses, some questions remain unanswered, according to legal experts. The guidance in Mortgagee Letter 2015-03 provides insufficient answers to the issues it was meant to address, said Robert Couch, a partner with the Birmingham, AL, law firm of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings and former general counsel at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Servicers should take note of those issues and seek further clarification, he said. Issued on Jan. 29, the guidance provides a way for lenders to proceed after a borrower with a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loan dies and is survived by a non-borrowing spouse. It allows a lender to assign to HUD HECMs that are in default due to the death of the borrower, as long as certain ...

VA loan volume continued to rise in the fourth quarter of 2014, driven by low interest rates and a strong demand for the lower downpayment loans, according to an Inside FHA Lending analysis of Ginnie Mae/VA data. The volume of VA loans securitized in Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities rose 4.0 percent in the fourth quarter to $107.8 billion from the previous quarter, with more than half of the loans coming through the retail channel. Retailers accounted for $51.5 billion in VA loans securitized during the quarter while correspondents and brokers accounted for $44.4 billion and $11.9 billion, respectively. The overall average FICO score for VA loans was 707, with average loan-to-value and debt-to-income ratios of 95.0 percent and 38.2 percent, respectively, during the quarter. Correspondents came up big with VA purchase loans, accounting for $31.7 billion of the $65.1 billion in total purchase loans produced during the fourth quarter. Retail loan officers accounted for $28.5 billion while brokers brought in ... [ 1 chart ]

The FHA has delayed the effective date of new guidance that will require reverse mortgage lenders to perform a financial assessment of applicants for a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage. The FHA indicated that the change was necessary to allow vendors and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to align their respective software before the new system can be operational. Those familiar with the technology said delivering the required system enhancements should not take long. The FHA said a new effective date should be expected within 30 to 60 days of the original March 2 effective date. It will be announced in a new mortgagee letter, the agency added. The new guidance requires lenders to evaluate HECM borrowers’ willingness and capacity to meet their obligations and to comply with program requirements. “Financial assessment” means doing a much more ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs expects to have a finalized Qualified Mortgage (QM) rule by May to help clear up some issues that have arisen since the agency issued an interim final rule last spring. The VA issued the interim QM rule for comment on May 9, 2014, to define which VA loans will have QM status under the ability-to-repay (ATR) rule. Issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the ATR rule provided temporary QM status to loans eligible for FHA insurance and guaranties by the VA and the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service. Eligible government-backed loans must be 30-year fixed-rate with no interest-only, negative amortization or balloon features. Total points and fees must not exceed 3 percent of the total loan amount for loans of $100,000 or more. Loans that meet the definition of a temporary VA-eligible QM are considered as in compliance with the ATR rule. They are designated as “safe harbor QMs,” provided they are not ...

Ginnie Mae servicing volume gained a mere percentage point in the fourth quarter of 2014 from the previous quarter, capping a productive year for servicers of government-backed mortgages, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of agency data. Servicing volume rose by only 1.0 percent to $1.5 trillion during the last three months of 2014 from $1.4 trillion in unpaid principal balance in the first quarter, and increased 4.0 percent year over year. Four out of the top five Ginnie Mae servicers were banks, of which three experienced declines in their servicing portfolios on quarterly and year-over-year bases. The leader of the pack, Wells Fargo, closed out the year with $416.0 billion in Ginnie Mae servicing and capturing 27.8 percent of the market. Its servicing portfolio fell ... [ 1 chart ]