The Department of Housing and Urban Development has expressed concern about the inspector general’s decision to withhold its opinion on the results of FY 2016 audits of HUD and Ginnie Mae. In its audit report, the HUD inspector general said it has issued a disclaimer of opinion on HUD’s fiscal years 2016 and 2015 (restated) consolidated financial statements because of the agency’s failure to deliver both statements and their accompanying notes in a timely manner. In addition, there were several unresolved audit matters from past audits that prevented the IG from completing an examination of HUD’s and Ginnie Mae’s accounts and rendering an opinion. These unresolved matters related to a number of things, including the Office of General Counsel’s refusal to sign a management representation letter, HUD’s improper use of budgetary accounting methods, and the $4.2 billion in ...

A strong purchase market helped push FHA and VA originations in the third quarter of 2016, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of agency data. FHA forward originations increased by 17.4 percent from the second quarter for a total of $72.3 billion. That brought total FHA-insured loans originated over the first nine months to $187.3 billion, up 3.9 percent from the same period last year. Purchase mortgages comprised 70.0 percent of FHA’s total origination over the last three quarters. Quicken Loans reported only a 3.3 percent increase in FHA originations in the third quarter but still managed to retain its top ranking with $10.8 billion in FHA originations in the first nine months of 2016. Freedom Mortgage worked extra hard, ending the nine-month period with $5.0 billion on the strength of refinances. Third-quarter originations were up 69.6 percent from the prior quarter, and up 51.4 percent for the ... [3 charts]

The Department of Justice lost its bid to have an FHA lawsuit against Quicken Loans heard in the nation’s capital after a federal judge this week ordered the case transferred to federal district court in Michigan. Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with Quicken that the proper forum for adjudicating the government’s False Claims Act case is the Eastern District Court in downtown Detroit. While the court agreed that the case has national implications, it also noted the “strong local interest in this matter in the Eastern District of Michigan,” where “Quicken Loans underwrote the FHA loans at issue, endorsed those loans, and certified its compliance as to those loans.” While certain factors weighed against the transfer, the alleged unlawful activity occurred in or near Detroit, where the lender is headquartered and most of its employees are located. The case, U.S. v. Quicken Loans, ...

A new report from the Government Accountability Office urged the FHA and the Rural Housing Service to consider consolidating both their similar, often overlapping single-family home loan guarantee programs. Both FHA and RHS, an agency under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, help borrowers finance homes by providing guarantees on their single-family mortgage loans. The latest GAO report expands on the analysis in a 2012 report, which found overlaps in the loan products offered by the two agencies, borrower income levels, and geographic areas served by the FHA single-family mortgage insurance program and the RHS’ Single-Family Housing Loan Guarantee Program. The report compared single-family home purchase loans backed by FHA and RHS in fiscal years 2010-2014. Auditors found significant overlap and some differences in the borrowers the agencies serve. According to the ...

Nonbanks crossed a threshold in the third quarter of 2016, posting a hefty 6.3 percent increase in their combined Ginnie Mae servicing portfolio, according to a new Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis. Nonbanks serviced $826.6 billion of Ginnie single-family mortgage-backed securities as of the end of September. That represented 51.3 percent of the total Ginnie market. The nonbank servicing total includes a small amount of Ginnie servicing held by state housing finance agencies, roughly 1.0 percent of the entire market. But it doesn’t include the significant amount of Ginnie servicing that nonbanks do as subservicers for both depository and nonbank clients. Interestingly, the biggest gain for nonbanks in percentage terms came in servicing VA loans, which rose 8.1 percent from the second quarter to $252.1 billion, or 51.0 percent of the market. The VA sector is one business from ... [4 charts ]

Ginnie Mae this week announced a policy change to ease investor fears about the rapid streamline refinancing of some loans in Ginnie I mortgage-backed securities pools and the effect of faster prepayments on mortgage securities investments. The revised policy establishes new criteria for pooling for streamlined refi loans. The revised policy addresses confusion regarding the Department of Veteran Affairs’ streamlined refi program, also known as the Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan (IRRRL) program, which is at the core of the rapid refi dispute. Under the VA’s interim qualified mortgage rule, a borrower must show six consecutive months of payments on the original loan before they can refinance into an IRRRL. With an IRRRL, borrowers get net tangible benefits of a lower interest rate, limited underwriting and no appraisal. As a qualified mortgage, an IRRRL provides ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development inspector general, over the last several weeks, has reported a series of final civil actions that resulted in an enforcement action or monetary settlement between an FHA lender and the federal government. On Oct. 6, the IG announced the results of an audit of TXL Mortgage Corp., a direct endorsement lender, in Houston. The audit found TXL in violation of HUD requirements and that it had no acceptable quality-control plan in place. Specifically, 16 of the 20 sample loans the IG reviewed did not comply with HUD standards. Of the 16 loans, eight had significant underwriting defects and failed to qualify for FHA mortgage insurance. Two loans qualified but were over-insured, according to the report. As a result, TXL exposed HUD to more than $713,000 in unnecessary insurance risk and caused the department to incur more than ...

Ginnie Mae rode a surging purchase-mortgage market and heavy refinance activity to new production records during the third quarter of 2016. The agency issued a whopping $145.14 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of MBS disclosures. That figure is based on pool-level disclosures that reveal exact principal balance amounts and it includes securities backed by FHA home-equity conversion mortgages. The data in the table below are based on truncated loan-level disclosures and do not include HECM activity. New Ginnie MBS issuance in the third quarter was up 15.7 percent from the previous quarter. Ginnie MBS production set three consecutive monthly records during the third quarter, culminating in a huge $52.46 billion month in September. Purchase-mortgage activity was the key driver, but the ... [ 4 charts ]

Requiring an undercapitalized issuer to repurchase uninsured performing mortgages out of a mortgage-backed securities pool could increase risk to the federal government, warned Ginnie Mae. Responding to an adverse audit report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General, Ginnie said that while it generally accepts the IG’s recommendations, forcing an undercapitalized issuer to buy out performing loans and either hold them in portfolio or sell them at a substantial loss would put the government at greater risk. “This is something we need to be alert to in certain cases,” the agency said. According to the report, Ginnie improperly allowed more than $49 million of single-family mortgages with terminated insurance to remain in its MBS pools for more than one year without obtaining FHA coverage. The IG warned Ginnie could be on the ...

Lenders are optimistic about a proposed rule that would reinstate FHA spot financing in unapproved condominium projects, saying this could be the spark that would jump-start the slow condo market.The proposed rules would clarify and modify certain FHA rules to kick-start condominium lending activity, and allow some flexibility in existing approval standards. Key proposals include the reinstatement of spot approvals in unapproved condominium developments and extending the effective recertification period for condo approvals to three years, rather than the current two-year requirement. Prior to 2009, spot approval allowed a buyer to use FHA financing to purchase a unit in an unapproved condo project, but the HUD approval process was expensive and time consuming. Consequently, few lenders were able to take advantage of the spot-approval program. The Department of ...