Industry joint-venture professionals are trying to stay upbeat as they feel their way around a changing economic and regulatory landscape. A number of them are pulling back somewhat as they strategize to find their niche in a recovering market and a business redefined by the Dodd-Frank Act. “As everybody here knows, there have been a long-standing number of mortgage joint ventures that have exited the business over the last couple of years,” Gerard Griesser, president of The Trident Group, said in introducing a panel of industry executives at the Real Estate Settlement Providers Council’s 2014 annual conference this week in Washington, DC. Robert Moline, president and chief operating officer at HomeServices of America, a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate based in Minneapolis, said...
About two-thirds of banks are willing to offer loans that don’t meet standards for qualified mortgages, according to a recent survey by the American Bankers Association. Lenders are concerned about the liability that comes with non-QMs, but borrower demand for non-QMs has prompted a wider range of mortgage offerings than many had projected after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s QM standards took effect. “More and more, in talking to our banks, I would say there’s an increased comfort in going beyond QM, doing business the way they’ve traditionally done business and expecting to meet either the QM or the ability-to-repay standard.” said Jonathan Miller, deputy director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s division of depositor and consumer protection. At a meeting last week by the FDIC’s Advisory Committee on Community Banking, Derek Williams, president and CEO of Columbus Community Bank, said...
Total consumer complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rose 34 percent year-over-year in the first quarter, but gripes about home mortgages fell 29.3 percent from year-ago levels, according to a new analysis by Inside the CFPB, an affiliated newsletter. The strong improvement from last year was driven largely by a 46.8 percent plunge in grievances about loan modifications. But complaints about servicing in general were up 21.4 percent from the first quarter of last year, while the other five mortgage-related categories were lower. Gripes having to do with loan application or other origination-related issues fell 26.7 percent from the first quarter of 2013. The number of gripes that were responded to in a timely manner fell...
The surge in recent years of Federal Home Loan Bank advances by big banks presents safety and soundness risks, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's Office of Inspector General.
Mortgage-related complaints to the CFPB as of the first quarter of 2014 were down significantly compared with the previous year, though they increased compared with the fourth quarter of 2013.
Bank of America will have to pay $727 million in restitution to consumers who were harmed by practices related to its credit card add-on products, under the terms of a consent order announced last week by the CFPB. That is the single largest amount of money yet returned to consumers in such an action by the bureau. BofA also agreed to pay a $20 million civil money penalty to the CFPB. The bureau went after BofA on two fronts: allegedly deceptive marketing practices as well as unfair billing practices. The marketing practices at issue had to do with two credit-card payment-protection products, “Credit Protection Plus” and “Credit Protection Deluxe.” “The bureau found that the telemarketing scripts Bank of America used...
In a statement submitted for the record to the House Financial Services Committee last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association said it remains concerned that the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule could unduly tighten mortgage credit for a significant number of creditworthy families who seek to buy or refinance a home. To improve the rule, the MBA rattled off a handful of suggestions, the first of which was to establish cure procedures. “The CFPB should adopt rules allowing lenders to cure calculation errors and other processing mistakes made while attempting to meet the qualified mortgage requirements,” the trade group said. “Without such procedures, lenders will be forced to avoid transactions at the boundaries of the points-and-fees cap, debt-to-income limits and the annual percentage...
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