Members of the Treasury Markets Practice Group are supportive of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s recent proposal to establish margin requirements for transactions in the “to be announced” market, seeing them as compatible with what the TMPG itself is trying to accomplish with the same products. According to the minutes of a recent meeting, TMPG members noted that FINRA’s proposed rule amendments would be binding across FINRA’s membership, which would further the objectives of the TMPG’s agency MBS margining recommendation and encourage wider adoption of margining practices over time. “While recognizing that the TMPG’s margining best practices go...
For those of you tracking the lawsuits filed by GSE preferred investors against the federal government, one attorney told us this week that: “These cases won’t be resolved for years." Meanwhile, it appears that the CSP still has no CEO.
Investors would be more willing to buy AAA tranches of jumbo mortgage-backed securities if issuers would standardize their offerings, according to Michael Stegman, counselor to the Treasury Department on housing finance policy. While the Treasury and industry participants both currently have initiatives aimed at standardization, issuers haven’t been too willing to seek uniformity. In a speech last week, Stegman said that based on recent meetings with jumbo MBS participants ...
Nationstar Mortgage joined Ocwen Financial last week under the glare of the New York Department of Financial Services’ spotlight. Ben Lawsky, superintendent of the NYDFS, said the state regulator has received hundreds of complaints about Nationstar’s practices, including problems with loan modifications, improper fees and lost paperwork. “Our department has significant concerns that the explosive growth at Nationstar and other nonbank servicers may create capacity issues ...
More lenders have expressed concern about a provision in the proposed FY 2015 federal budget seeking congressional authority to collect $30 million to help improve and strengthen FHA quality assurance reviews. Under the president’s budget proposal, FHA would collect an “administrative fee” from FHA lenders to implement the quality assurance (QA) changes needed to provide a clearer, more transparent picture of enforcement going forward. The improvements are meant to provide lenders not only information about early payment default or other kinds of default characteristics through loan sampling but also an accurate snapshot of their “manufacturing risk,” which is the risk that a loan is not underwritten properly. “The purpose is for lenders to have the information six to nine months after they have originated the loan as opposed to ...
Penalties in legislation that would restrict the use of eminent domain to resolve foreclosure problems could cripple state and local governments financially and provide no relief to property owners, warned the bill’s critics. H.R. 1944, the Private Rights Protection Act, would prohibit city and county governments that get federal funding for economic development from using their eminent domain powers to seize underwater mortgage notes from investors and unilaterally restructure the loans before selling them to other investors. Violators would be ineligible for federal economic development funds for two fiscal years following a court’s finding of guilt. The bill also provides the attorney general with broader enforcement authority. The necessity for legislation arose in the wake of efforts last year by certain municipalities in California to ...
The Chinese Year of the Horse welcomed the FHA with a hard kick in the head as total originations fell 20 percent in January from December 2013. Even as rising interest rates slowed refinancing activity last year, the expected increase in purchase-mortgage lending barely materialized and, in fact, appears to be dropping off. Lenders reported $8.7 billion in new originations in January, down from $10.9 billion in December and $23.7 billion from a year ago. Most were fixed-rate mortgages and 77.1 percent were purchase transactions. Three of the top five FHA lenders – Quicken Loans, JPMorgan Chase and LoanDepot – reported purchase origination totals below 40 percent. Top-ranked Wells Fargo and Bank of America each reported 64.0 percent of total FHA originations as purchase transactions. Wells Fargo closed the month with $519.0 million despite a ... [2 charts]
A spokeswoman for the FHFA declined to provide any guidance on when a CEO or chairman might be named for the CSP. She noted: “The common securitization platform project is still in development,” adding that “We have neither final plans nor specific budgets at this time.”
Last week, Lawsky noted that Nationstar’s portfolio more than doubled between the end of 2012 and the end of 2013. He asked the nonbank servicer to provide the number of full timers in each unit as well as the number of loans per employee.
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