Well, at least the White House is happy. Fannie and Freddie turned over $66.4 billion to the government at the end of June, money that will help reduce the deficit.

The Federal Reserve will go ahead with proposed rule changes related to mortgage servicing rights, but with what it calls a “lengthy transition period.”

Stonegate Mortgage, a fast growing lender, wants to go public. Meanwhile, thanks to the Fed, MSR sales could be massive.

A high percentage of FHA-insured mortgage loans were deemed unacceptable after a post-endorsement review performed by the FHA revealed material defects that apparently went undetected at the time the loans were approved, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In a recent report by HUD’s Office of Lender Activities and Program Compliance, 44 percent of 6,251 single-family mortgage loans that underwent post-endorsement loan reviews in the first quarter of 2013 were found initially unacceptable. Under the FHA’s three-tier rating system, loans are rated as “conforming,” “deficient” or “unacceptable.” The review found...

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors unanimously issued a revised Basel III final rule this week that abandons the proposed changes to the risk-weighting of residential mortgages, but presses ahead with the proposed new treatment of mortgage servicing rights. In backing off the proposed changes for residential mortgages, Fed officials cited community bank concerns about the complexity of calculating loan-to-value ratios under the proposed regime. They also emphasized concerns about the unknown interaction the proposed changes would have with other mortgage-related rulemakings confronting the industry, most notably the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s “qualified mortgage” standard as well as the qualified residential mortgage definition, which is still in development by federal regulators. “In light of new regulations designed to improve the quality of mortgage underwriting as well as continued uncertainty regarding the aggregate impact of pending mortgage-related rulemakings, the draft final rule does not include...

A former federal prosecutor, Linick is credited with creating the agency’s Office of Inspector General from the ground up.

Authorizing the FHA to shift mortgage-servicing rights from one processor to another could have a ripple effect on Ginnie Mae servicing rights.

On Tuesday the Fed will hold an open meeting to discuss final rule-making tied to the Basel III accords, which affects the value of mortgage servicing rights.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to take on the presidential recess appointment issue in Noel Canning v. National Labor Relations Board, the odds are high that Richard Cordray’s appointment will also be reviewed and perhaps declared unconstitutional, according to the consensus expectations of a number of industry representatives. And if that happens, it could be a real mess for the mortgage lending community, according to one top industry lobbyist. In Canning, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals...

The CFPB issued a bulletin last week that details the kind of “responsible conduct” by a regulated institution that the agency may “favorably consider in exercising its enforcement discretion.”The factors include the nature, extent and severity of the violations identified; the actual or potential harm from those violations; whether there is a history of past violations; and a party’s effectiveness in addressing violations. The bureau said the guidance was being issued to inform those subject to its enforcement...