The market outside the pristine parameters of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s qualified mortgage offers less-competitive opportunity and potentially sizeable legal risk, according to panelists participating in a webinar sponsored this week by Inside Mortgage Finance. Brian Simon, chief operating officer for New Penn Financial, noted that the regulatory environment makes a move into non-QM lending much more complicated than in the past because the risks for the originator and the purchaser now are greater than they’ve ever been. However, Simon added: “A high degree of difficulty usually results in higher yield and opportunity.” The New Penn executive predicted...

Mortgage lenders reported $1.762 trillion in new purchase-money and refinance originations during 2013 under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of the data released by federal agencies this week. HMDA purchase and refinance originations were down 12.4 percent from 2012, with the biggest decline in refi activity, off 26.2 percent. Purchase-mortgage lending was up in both the government-insured market (up 1.3 percent) and conventional originations (up 32.5 percent). Even with the sharp downturn in business, refinance originations accounted...[Includes one data chart]

Last week, the Senate passed legislation that would extend to state-licensed mortgage companies – and the state regulatory agencies that oversee them – the same kind of protections against waivers of privilege for information provided to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that was previously extended to federal agencies that supervise depository mortgage lenders. The measure, H.R. 5062, the Examination and Supervisory Privilege Parity Act of 2014, would require the CFPB to coordinate its supervisory activities with state agencies that license, supervise or examine those who offer consumer financial products or services. Currently under the Dodd-Frank Act, the bureau is only required to coordinate with federal and state banking regulators. The legislation also would provide...

Just how large is the non-QM market? That’s hard to say...

“Banks are really bad at servicing nonperforming loans,” said Jon Wishnia, a partner at the law firm of Lowenstein Sandler.

Hell hath no fury like an agency whose new issuers are not actually issuing (MBS)...

FHFA's Bob Ryan said the GSE regulator has concerns that decreasing loan limits or increasing g-fees would limit access to credit.

Originators are constantly looking over their shoulders because loans are being re-underwritten two or three times, once by the aggregator, once by the GSEs...

Soon it will be easier to use Ginnie Mae mortgage servicing rights as collateral, or so the agency hopes.

It appears that Ethos Lending will enter the non-QM market come October...