The House bill is currently at the Senate desk, awaiting nods from Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, and Ranking Minority Member Sherrod Brown…
In his report, KBW analyst Bose George said, “While Mel Watt, director of the FHFA, was questioned about some of these issues in past congressional hearings, this will be the first hearing to focus exclusively on this topic.”
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders received a bit of good news late last week when a judge sided with them on one of their arguments against the government.
Non-agency mortgages underwritten with just one monthly bank statement from the borrower might not meet standards set by the ability-to-repay rule, according to Eric Kaplan, director of the housing finance program at the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets. Speaking at the ABS East conference produced by Information Management Network last week in Miami Beach, Kaplan was among the industry participants that raised concerns about how quickly underwriting has loosened ...
The reverse mortgage industry is supporting an FHA move to require a second appraisal for certain Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans. FHA did not seek public comment on the interim policy change, which subjects all HECM loans, effective Oct. 1, to a collateral risk assessment to ensure the appraisal of the property is not inflated. The new policy has wide support in the reverse mortgage industry. A study conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development last year found that 37 percent of appraisals on approximately 134,000 HECMs tested positive for over-valuation. The inflated HECM appraisals were at least 3 percent higher than estimates by FHA’s proprietary automated valuation model, according to FHA Commissioner Brian Montgomery. The same study also found that higher-than-expected losses in the HECM program could be attributed in part to ...
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