The Department of Veterans Affairs has issued a policy clarifying that VA lenders must treat veterans in same-sex or opposite-sex marriages equally and fairly when processing and underwriting their home-loan applications. The policy is effective immediately. Under the new policy announced on May 19, the VA will process all claims and applications involving same-sex marriages in the same manner as claims and applications based on opposite-sex marriages, “without any additional scrutiny or development.” Language on VA forms, web pages and other VA communication materials will be revised to ensure that all veterans, VA program administrators and personnel are aware of the equal-treatment policy. The new instructions require VA lenders to accept a claimant’s or an applicant’s assertion of ...
Congress is considering streamlining the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s single- and multifamily housing programs as lawmakers expressed concern about reports of inefficiency, inflexible underwriting and weak risk management. In an oversight hearing conducted recently by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, lawmakers also considered a suggestion to merge the USDA’s Rural Housing Service and FHA single-family mortgage insurance programs because of overlapping functions and certain similarities in their borrower profiles. “The process of dealing with RHS is a nightmare,” said Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO), vice chairman of the committee. “It is 2015 but we have a housing program that operates like it is 1975.” Complaints against the RHS include little or no accountability across government programs, significant lack of ...
VA loan servicers are now required to request a redemption quote from the agency’s property management contractor, Vendor Resource Management (VRM), to avoid any confusion in the future about such quotes. In recently issued guidance, the VA established standard procedures for redeeming VA property, after foreclosure, in states that allow “statutory redemption.” Statutory redemption refers to a borrower’s right to regain ownership of his or her home that has been foreclosed. Statutory redemption laws allow the borrower a limited amount of time to redeem their property if they are able to buy it back at the price for which it was sold at foreclosure. The redemption window varies by state and ranges from 30 days to 2 years. At the time of redemption, the entire underlying mortgage debt plus interest, foreclosure fees and other costs are due. In most cases, the servicer has ...
New entrants in the Ginnie Mae issuer community expand access to credit at lower cost, deepen the market for Ginnie mortgage servicing rights and help address the agency’s “too-big-to-fail” issue, said the agency’s top executive. “Our top concern is that issuers have the operational and financial strength to meet issuer/servicer obligations,” Tozer said during the recent secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association. The flood of new nonbank issuers into the program has been well documented. While they have diluted the heavy concentration of business in the hands of a few megabanks, many have complex financial structures that are less tested in the marketplace, he said. The pipeline of issuer applicants has dropped dramatically, the Ginnie executive reported. To get approved, an applicant has to show where the cash will come from to ...
Genworth U.S. Mortgage Insurance said the FHA mortgage insurance premium reduction earlier this year has not had much of an impact on private MI business so far in terms of creating more competition. “I would say competition with FHA is about the same,” said Rohit Gupta, president and CEO of Genworth. “We have seen the FHA price reduction actually having more impact on FHA streamline refis. Borrowers who have gotten into FHA loans three years ago are refinancing into another FHA loan just to reduce their annual payment.” In January, the FHA pared its annual MIP from 1.35 percent down to 0.85 percent to win over first-time homebuyers and other qualified borrowers. While Gupta emphasized that on the purchase side there hasn’t been that big of an impact yet, he said “we might have seen a little bit of an impact in the first quarter but nothing significant yet.” He added there are a lot more ...
FHA Releases Planned System Enhancements for SF Policy Handbook. The FHA is providing an overview of the FHA Connection (FHAC) system enhancements to help lenders get ready before the Single-Family Policy Handbook’s Sept. 14, 2015, effective date. The system enhancements primarily affect three screens in the FHAC case assignments, appraisal logging and insurance application. In the coming weeks, FHA plans to provide technical details for entities using direct interface with FHAC. FHA Announces Availability of Recorded Training Modules for SF Policy Handbook. FHA-approved mortgagees may now use new-recorded training modules to guide them through the ...
The former analyst said Freddie has “an inferior security [MBS] necessitating the need for a lot of time and expense to create a common securitization platform…”
Mortgage-related issues will likely play a central role in the end product of financial regulatory relief legislation working its way through the U.S. Senate. For now, though, the measure passed by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee last week is really an opening gambit, as congressional staffers confer over technical details and lawmakers horse trade and arm twist. “It’s a starter,” said Bob Davis, head of mortgage markets and the senior lobbyist at the American Bankers Association, speaking of the bill sponsored by committee chairman Sen. Richard Shelby, R-AL, the Financial Regulatory Improvement Act of 2015. “The Shelby bill will be...
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