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 ...

The days of it being a seller’s market for mortgage banking franchises appears to be over, with current owners are increasingly unwilling to part with their companies at reduced prices. As one merger-and-acquisitions specialist put it, “It’s just hard getting deals done these days.” It looks like a case of supply and demand – and, of course, cash. At the very least, sellers want to receive book value for their companies plus some type of “earn-out” that could last up to 10 years. According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance over the past week, the ratio of buyers to sellers has...

FHA launched into the new year with a slight dip in forward mortgage loan originations in January from December with nonbanks leading the charge, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of agency data. Lenders originated $11.8 billion in FHA-insured loans in January, a 0.7 percent decrease from December and down 3.5 percent from the prior year. FHA was charging a higher annual mortgage insurance premium of 1.35 percent for most of the month until a 50 basis point reduction, effective Jan. 26, lowered the MIP to 0.85 percent for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage with a five percent downpayment, and down to 0.80 percent for a similar FHA loan with more than five percent downpayment. The impact of the reduced MIP on February originations is still unclear, but most FHA lenders are expecting a boost in volume because many consumers ... [1 chart]

Agency single-family MBS issuance rose 2.8 percent in February on the back of a huge increase in securitization of seasoned home loans at Freddie Mac, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis of loan-level MBS data. Fannie Mae MBS issuance fell 3.2 percent from January to February, and Ginnie Mae production was down 12.8 percent. But Freddie Mac issuance jumped by $7.05 billion from January’s level, a gain of 30.8 percent in a month. Freddie securitized...[Includes two data charts]

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, ...

The Department of Justice shows no sign of letting up in its pursuit of FHA lenders that originate improperly underwritten mortgages that later result in significant taxpayer losses. MetLife Home Loans, which is no longer in operation, became the newest addition to the government’s growing list of financial institutions that opted to settle allegations brought under the False Claims Act and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act, in connection with the origination and servicing of FHA-insured mortgages. Under the agreement, MetLife will pay $123.5 million to resolve allegations that its predecessor it “[turned] a blind eye to mortgage loans that did not meet basic FHA underwriting standards,” and stuck the FHA and taxpayers with the bill when the loans defaulted. In June 2013, MetLife Bank merged into MetLife Home Loans, a mortgage finance company ...

The FHA’s recent decision to reduce its annual mortgage insurance premium by 50 basis points pushes back the agency’s timeline for attaining the 2 percent capital reserve requirement by 2016 and limits private mortgage insurance companies’ ability to serve borrowers with higher loan-to-value ratios, warned MI industry representatives. Testifying before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, Clifford Rossi, chief economist of Radian Group, said the FHA sought to justify the premium cut by saying it far exceeded the amounts necessary to cover new FHA-insured mortgages. “But this ignores the higher expected losses on earlier insured loans,” he said. Comparing lifetime premiums on current borrowers to their projected average lifetime losses is not a meaningful comparison for an insurance portfolio comprised of borrower risk profiles over book years subject to different economic scenarios, Rossi argued. Moreover, comparing premiums to average losses overlooks ...

The FHA bucked a decreasing delinquency-rate trend for all other types of loan by posting an increase in past-due loans during the last three months of 2014, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest national delinquency survey. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the overall delinquency rate fell 17 bps for all loan types to 5.68 percent, MBA data showed. Data compiled by the Inside Mortgage Finance Large Servicer Delinquency Index also showed a sizeable decline of 32.7 basis points in the fourth quarter from the prior quarter. The 24 servicers covered by the index had a delinquency rate of 6.34 percent in the fourth quarter, down from 7.59 percent in the same period the prior year. The IMF data are not seasonally adjusted. In contrast, the FHA delinquency rate rose to 9.73 percent in the fourth quarter, up 4 bps from the previous quarter, according to the MBA. On the other hand, loans with a ...

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 ...

Endorsements of FHA-insured reverse mortgages jumped 31.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 from the previous quarter with purchase HECMs accounting for more than 22 percent of the total. On the other hand, endorsements were down 9.1 percent year-over-year because of new restrictive HECM rules that were implemented last year. Endorsements totaled $13.9 billion for the year. All top five HECM lenders posted sequential gains. Leader American Advisors Group had a 12-month total of $2.0 billion, representing 14.7 percent of the market. Second-ranked Reverse Mortgage Solutions closed out the year with $1.0 billion in total endorsements and a 7.4 percent market share. One Reverse Mortgage, Liberty Home Equity Solutions and Proficio Mortgage Ventures comprised ... [1 chart}