The Federal Home Loan Bank’s Mortgage Partnership Finance (MPF) Program has removed certain barriers to streamline refinancing of government-backed mortgages. Effective on July 6, 2015, the MPF no longer requires minimum FICO score, maximum loan-to-value ratios or appraisals for FHA streamlined refis, VA Interest Rate Reduction Refinance loans and rural housing home loans with a U.S. Department of Agriculture guarantee. The MPF program’s participating financial institutions (PFIs) may now originate and underwrite streamline refis based solely on the requirements of the FHA, VA or the USDA’s Rural Housing Service. The program currently requires borrower and co-borrower income for government loan streamline refis for the purpose of loan presentment. “Presentment” refers to the right to require a lender to demand payment of amounts ...
HUD Re-Offers Single-Family Loans to Investors. Due to the required release of a Bidder Supplement for Single-Family Loan Sale 2015-1, the Department of Housing and Urban Development re-offered all pools in SFLS 2015-1 on July 16. The offering included National Pools and Neighborhood Stabilization Outcome Pools (NSOs). The NSOs include one pool for which only nonprofit bidders or local-government agencies were allowed to bid. Such pools consist of loans in areas that have been hard hit with foreclosures or that have experienced an economic downturn. The final NSO pool areas include Chicago; Newark, NJ; Camden, NJ; Nassau and Suffolk Counties, NY; Baltimore; and Philadelphia. The NSO pool for Detroit was earmarked for nonprofit and local-government bidders. Sellers Bring $1.53 Billion Servicing Offering to Market. Denver-based Phoenix Capital is in the market with a ...
A handful of nonbank lenders are stepping up to the plate, offering mortgages to borrowers who are just one day removed from a foreclosure or short sale. But there’s a catch: many of the lenders willing to extend such credit want at least 20 percent down. Also, as it turns out, the trend is being funded by commercial banks that are serving as the end investors in the product. Two banks – one in California and one in New York – were identified...
Originations of purchase mortgages were strong in the second quarter of 2015 and through the start of summer, according to industry participants. In recent months, demand for home purchases has been driven by current homeowners and first-time homebuyers, two groups that are particularly reliant on mortgage financing. “The purchase market has been stronger than people expected in the second quarter,” said Paul Miller, a managing director at FBR Capital Markets. Kevin Hester, chief lending officer at Home BancShares, said...
Republican congressional leadership commemorated the fifth anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Act this week by bashing the massive legislation. But there was not a single mention of making any changes to the mortgage-related provisions in the law. However, Republican leaders of the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee demonstrated varying degrees of optimism about enacting broader changes to the controversial law. During a Dodd-Frank discussion forum early this week at the American Enterprise Institute, HFSC Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, in response to a question about the political prospects for reform, said...
It’s been 2.5 years since the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced they were joining forces to begin compiling a National Mortgage Database, and the project continues to spook some in the industry. Several news reports over the past week have billed the initiative as part of the Obama administration’s “secret race database,” based on a report last week by Paul Sperry, a fellow at the Hoover Center. The Federal Housing Finance Agency continues to defend the project as a tool to help regulators ward off future mortgage crises. The NMD will be...