Last month, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt said he’s prepared to allow Fannie and Freddie to build some type of capital buffer to avoid a Treasury draw…
The Department of Veterans Affairs is seeking clearance for two information-collection forms that are crucial to a veteran’s ability to obtain or cure a VA-guaranteed mortgage loan. The Office of Management and Budget is currently reviewing the forms. The VA also has published notices in the June 1 Federal Register seeking public comment on the proposed revised forms. Comments for both notices are due July 3, 2017. The first form relates to information a veteran must provide to be exempted from paying a funding fee. Borrowers are required to pay a funding fee to obtain a loan with a VA guaranty, unless the borrower is a disabled veteran receiving VA compensation for his or her service-connected disability. Loans made to unmarried surviving spouses of veterans who have died in service or from a service-related disability also are exempted from payment of the funding fee (regardless of whether the ...
Ginnie Mae is sailing without a captain, a fact that is causing some concern among mortgage bankers and mortgage-backed securities investors. The agency tasked with securitizing government-backed mortgages has been without a president since Democrat Ted Tozer left on Jan. 20, 2017, the same day that President-elect Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. Since that time, Nancy Corsiglia, a career Ginnie official, has been acting president. She was elevated from her position as chief operating officer. Industry officials who claim to have knowledge of the selection process maintain that mortgage banke David Kittle, president of the Mortgage Collaborative, is the leading candidate to fill the post with Michael Bright, a director at the Milken Institute, a close second. One source close to the situation claimed that background checks by the Trump White House are likely ...
The House of Representatives late this week passed H.R. 10, the Financial CHOICE Act, which would undo a number of changes to the secondary market and to the regulatory landscape that were ushered in by the Dodd-Frank Act. As previously reported, among these are the elimination of the Dodd-Frank risk-retention requirements for ABS other than residential mortgages. Another provision would enable the president to remove the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency before the end of the director’s appointed term, with or without cause. It also would make...