The FHA has issued temporary guidelines to ease the condominium approval process and increase the number of condo projects eligible for FHA financing. The guidelines take effect immediately and will be in place for one year to give FHA enough time to write and implement a more comprehensive rule. With the issuance of the guidelines, FHA anticipates an increase in the pool of FHA-eligible condo projects, which in turn will provide more affordable housing options for first-time and low- to moderate-income borrowers. The interim guidelines modify three key areas where lender complaints have been common. First, the guidelines revise requirements for recertification of condo projects. FHA-approved condo projects require recertification after two years to ensure that the project is still in ...
Thanks to declining interest rates and higher prepayment speeds in the third quarter – especially on Ginnie Mae receivables – several publicly traded nonbanks were forced to write down the asset value of their mortgage servicing rights, causing millions of dollars in red ink. According to a review by Inside Mortgage Finance of the earnings statements of six nonbanks, the combined servicing markdown was an ugly $448 million. The group includes Nationstar Mortgage, Ocwen Financial, PennyMac Financial Services, PHH Corp., Stonegate Mortgage and Walter Investment Management Corp., the parent of Ditech Financial. Walter took...
The legal table is set for a potentially pivotal court ruling on the mortgage industry’s use of marketing services agreements under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, now that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau submitted its “reply” brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in the agency’s dispute with PHH Mortgage. In its filing last week in PHH Corp., et al., v. CFPB, the bureau did not try to assert that all MSAs are unlawful or illegitimate, in and of themselves. “Parties to illegal kickback agreements are unlikely to put those agreements into writing. So those agreements may have to be identified based on circumstantial evidence and inference,” said the CFPB. “But RESPA Section 8(c)(2) clarifies when it is not proper to infer an illegal agreement. Illegality cannot be inferred merely because a party that received referrals makes payments to a party that made the referrals. “Moreover, such an arrangement is...
loanDepot Inc. this week priced its much anticipated initial public offering, valuing its soon-to-be-listed shares – 34.5 million units in total – at $18 each or roughly $621 million, a lofty valuation for a company that owns just over $20.9 billion in mortgage servicing rights. Few in the industry are questioning loanDepot’s explosive growth since its inception five years ago, but eyebrows have been raised about the anticipated size of the deal. “It’s...
Seemingly small differences in monthly mortgage payments for borrowers in bankruptcy helped prompt an $81.6 million settlement between Wells Fargo and the Department of Justice late last week. The DOJ’s U.S. Trustee Program said Wells repeatedly violated federal bankruptcy rules that took effect in December 2011 and imposed more detailed disclosure requirements to ensure proper accounting of fees and charges for borrowers in bankruptcy. The main instance cited in the settlement agreement was...
Promoting affordable housing by recapitalizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is the premise of a new study released this week by the Brookings Institution arguing that their conservatorship should come to an end. Obama administration officials have previously rejected such proposals. The paper noted that the Treasury Department’s sweep policy, which takes the bulk of Fannie’s and Freddie’s profits, limits the government-sponsored enterprises’ ability to promote homeownership and expand access to affordable home ownership, especially among low-income households. Robert Shapiro, former Brookings fellow, and chairman of Sonecon, LLC, along with Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at Brookings, said...
Despite a recovering housing market, the number of first-time homebuyers fell to the lowest level it’s been in close to 30 years, according an annual survey from the National Association of Realtors. The share of first-time buyers in the marketplace declined for the third year in a row, dipping to 32 percent, from 33 percent a year ago. The NAR said it hasn’t been that low since the trade group began the survey in 1981. Recent numbers show it’s the second lowest it’s been since 1987, when first-timers accounted for 30 percent of the market. Historically, the long-term average shows...
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