The Department of Housing and Urban Development has reminded mortgagees and servicers that it is illegal to use mortgage escrow funds for purposes other than those stated in federal regulation. In a recent FHA notice, HUD warned approved lenders and servicers against applying escrow funds to reduce the outstanding balance in the payoff amount of an existing loan. The department said it has not authorized the use of borrower money in escrow accounts for reasons other than making legitimate payments. Escrow funds are borrowers’ funds collected at ...

FHA loan production declined by 11.0 percent in February from the previous month but increased 1.2 percent from a year ago, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of FHA data. Approved lenders reported $15.2 billion in new FHA-insured loans in February, down from $17.1 billion the previous month but up from $15.0 billion in the same month last year. In-house originations accounted for the lion’s share of FHA originations, 78.2 percent, for the month, while purchase mortgages made up the bulk of FHA endorsements at 55.1 percent. An estimated 97.1 percent were ... [1 Chart]

The FHA’s total capital resources fell slightly during the fourth quarter of 2011, even while the rate of serious delinquencies edged higher, according to a quarterly report released this week. The FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund had $33.3 billion in total capital resources as of the end of December, down from $33.7 billion at the end of September. While the report does not cover the program’s capital ratio – a minimum level of reserves set by Congress that the program has failed to reach over the past two fiscal years – it’s likely that the FHA may have slipped further behind. The agency...

The steady decline in home loans outstanding in the market continued for a fourth straight year in 2011, with the total servicing market shrinking to $10.291 trillion. That was down 2.2 percent from the previous year. The only sector that has seen any growth was Ginnie Mae servicing, which increased 14.4 percent last year even though FHA lending has begun to taper off. The total supply of Fannie and Freddie servicing was down 1.1 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively, though they still account for the two largest components in the market, 27.9 and 17.3 percent of the amount...(Includes two data charts)

The expanded Home Affordable Refinance Program barely got off the launch pad in December, but more recent data and anecdotal reports suggest that the revamped mission to help underwater Fannie and Freddie borrowers is flying higher in early 2012. Even as the government-sponsored enterprises were reporting a 5.0 percent increase in refinance activity in December, the number of new HARP loans declined by a whopping 35.8 percent from the previous month. HARP activity increased by 3.3 percent from the third to the fourth quarter of last year, but that was significantly...(Includes two data charts)

Flagstar Bank’s recent $133 million settlement with the Department of Justice to resolve fraudulent FHA lending practices could increase lender overlays on the FHA product, resulting in fewer borrowers being able to qualify for an FHA-insured loan, according to analysts. The Flagstar settlement, which came in the wake of the $25 billion national settlement between servicers and state and federal agencies, exacerbates the situation for lenders that already have previous concerns about the severity of FHA fines, including treble damages, for violations of FHA’s highly complex and technical rules, analysts said. Whatever relief FHA lenders may have drawn from the robo-signing settlement was ...

Failure by the five largest FHA mortgage servicers to establish effective controls and to comply with FHA foreclosure procedures resulted in improper servicing practices that may have exposed them to liability under the False Claims Act, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General concluded in separate, recently released audits. The HUD-OIG audits of the top five FHA servicers – Bank of America, Ally Financial, Wells Fargo, CitiMortgage and JPMorgan Chase – revealed a variety of questionable foreclosure practices involving the use of foreclosure “mills” and robo-signing of sworn documents in thousands of foreclosures throughout the country. The audits were ...

Significant price cuts to the FHA’s Streamline Refinance Program will not hurt the Mortgage Mutual Insurance Fund but will, in fact, benefit from the lower pricing in the long term, said Acting FHA Commissioner Carol Galante.Testifying last week before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies, Galante said the pricing cuts to encourage streamline refinancing as well as upfront and annual mortgage insurance premium increases for forward and jumbo mortgages will generate an additional $1 billion this fiscal year and next, in addition to projections in the president’s FY2013 budget. According to Galante, the FY2013 budget proposal ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued new guidance allowing non-FHA mortgage loans to qualify for an FHA refinance loan if the lender or investor agrees to write off the unpaid principal balance of the original first-lien mortgage by at least 10 percent. The guidance expands last year’s enhancements to the FHA Short Refinance program, which allowed responsible homeowners with negative equity to refinance into a 30-year, fixed-rate FHA loan. It also extends the program until Dec. 31, 2014. Under the latest changes, underwater borrowers who may have been delinquent ...

Ginnie Mae will question certain mortgage-backed securities issuers about reporting inconsistencies in pool data submissions over the last couple of months and try to resolve those issues to avoid delay in MBS pool processing. In an audio conference with issuers last week, Ginnie Mae officials said agency staff discovered the flawed data submissions while poring over several months’ worth of pool data submitted by issuers. While most of the information fell within theVargas said the discrepancies were attributed to a small group of issuers, who will be contacted soon to work on corrections before Ginnie Mae puts stronger edits up front. She said the agency wants to ...