Two of the most active nonprime originators operating today may be headed in different directions when it comes to securitizing the non-qualified mortgages they’ve been originating. An official at the Angel Oak Companies told Inside MBS & ABS this week that the lender hopes to securitize at least once a quarter “going forward.” Citadel Servicing Corp., Irvine, CA, had hoped to issue its first security either late this month or in June, but appears to be pushing back its timetable. Dan Perl, CEO and founder of Citadel, declined...

A new working paper from University of California at Irvine economics professor Eric Swanson suggests the U.S. central bank’s bond buying activities will continue, to one extent or another, perhaps indefinitely. The reason? What the Federal Reserve did in the wake of the financial crisis produced longer-lasting results than what it said. Swanson, a former researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said both the Fed’s Open Market Committee guidance on the likely future path of the federal funds rate and its large-scale asset purchases (LSAPs) have had positive effects. The goal of both policies was...

A Manhattan appeals court raised the burden of proof for Ambac Assurance, which seeks to recover monetary damages from Bank of America in an insurance case involving $1.68 billion in securities backed by high-risk mortgages from now-defunct Countrywide Home Loans. Attorneys with Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas said a panel of the Appellate Division, First Judicial Department, ruled that Ambac may not use New York insurance law as the sole basis for arguing that it does not have to prove certain elements of fraud in its claims against BofA. The court also barred Ambac from using the statute to recover damages. The court held...

Participants in the non-agency mortgage-backed security market and banks have proposed different ways of how to address debt-to-income ratio standards for qualified mortgages. The Structured Finance Industry Group wants the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to consider speeding the timeline for ending the so-called QM patch, while the American Bankers Association seeks a permanent fix for the DTI issue. The debate centers on the 43.0 percent DTI ratio standard for QMs ...

If Trump is successful, presumably the money would flow through to the bottom line of Fannie and Freddie and counted toward earnings.

FHA liability standards, Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) lien guidance, downpayment assistance and revised condominium rules are among the regulations industry groups would like the Department of Housing and Urban Development to change or clarify. HUD is putting together an internal task force to identify regulations for review and to assess their compliance costs and regulatory burden. The department also has published a notice of the undertaking in the Federal Register with a request for comment. The comment period ends on June 14, 2017. President Trump issued an executive order in January directing federal agencies to identify at least two prior regulations for elimination for every new regulation they issue. The Mortgage Bankers Association is seeking clarification of FHA liability standards to entice banks to resume their FHA lending. The group thinks HUD’s new defect taxonomy ...

False Claims Act enforcement against FHA lenders appears to have slowed with no new cases being filed by the Department of Justice or referred by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general for nearly a year. Neither agency has gone after any lender for alleged False Claims Act violations since May of last year when the Department of Justice intervened in an FCA case brought by a whistleblower against Guild Mortgage, an FHA direct endorsement lender. The complaint alleged that San Diego-based Guild Mortgage knowingly approved loans that violated FHA rules while falsely certifying compliance with those rules. The alleged violations occurred between 2006 and 2011, resulting in “tens of millions of dollars” in losses to HUD. The case is pending in federal district court in Washington, DC. Indications are the FCA cases involving FHA lenders have ...

Requesting a certificate of eligibility (COE) may be just a click away but the process is not without pitfalls, cautioned a panel of VA loan production officers during an industry conference. The panelists – Maxine Henry, program analyst with the VA Central Office; Ricardo Holloway, loan production officer with the Atlanta Regional Loan Center; and Paula Jesse, assistant loan production officer with the Denver RLC – urged veterans to order their COE early in the loan-application process to avoid any hiccups. A COE verifies to the lender that the veteran/borrower is eligible for a VA loan. Ordering early would help prevent last-minute delays, said Henry. “It is a problem if the veteran is at the closing table and still does not have a COE because it was ordered just a few days prior to closing,” Henry noted. Other potential hitches are incorrect documentation or receiving a VA determination that the ...

One constitutional issue that garnered some attention: whether a multi-member commission is more legitimate than a single director…

When’s the last time a publicly traded mortgage company was sold in a stock transaction?