Of course, there is a way to avoid the zero capital cushion dilemma. Congress can pass legislation to allow the GSEs to build capital or FHFA can act...

Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle – and even some regulators – are pushing for legislation to broaden the types of loans that receive protections allotted to qualified mortgages. A number of issues remain in flux, including how widely the expanded QM definition would be applied and whether there is enough urgency to pass a bill before the end of the year. Last week, Thomas Hoenig, vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., detailed ...

Wells Fargo this week said it would reinstate certain credit overlays on its FHA business segment after expressing frustration over FHA’s republished proposal on loan-level certification. The lender, which ranked second on Inside FHA/VA Lending’s top FHA lenders for the first six months of 2015, reiterated the need for clearer rules in order to originate FHA-insured loans without fear of litigation or enforcement action. The bank said it is very disappointed with FHA’s revised certification proposal, which was republished in the Sept. 1 Federal Register. “In spite of much input to FHA from various consumer groups and lenders over a long period of time, [the] proposal falls short of what is needed,” said Mike Heid, head of Wells Fargo Home Lending. “As a result, this will now force us to add back certain credit overlays on the FHA single-family program.” Other FHA lenders could follow Wells Fargo’s lead as some did when ...

Securitized FHA,VA and rural housing loans in Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities totaled $188.5 billion in the first six months of 2015, fueled by significant purchase and refinance activity, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of Ginnie Mae data. An estimated $113.4 billion in FHA-insured mortgages were securitized during the first half of the year. Of that total, $60.6 billion were purchase mortgages and $44.2 billion were refinance loans. FHA purchase-loan production increased 58.8 percent in the second quarter from the prior quarter while refi lending jumped 160.8 percent over the same period as FHA’s reduced annual mortgage insurance premium began to take hold. The FHA loans that went into Ginnie MBS showed an average loan-to-value ratio of 92.8 percent and an average debt-to-income ratio of 39.7 percent. Borrowers’ average FICO score was 675.9, which was indicative of ... [ 2 charts ]

An FHA proposal to establish a deadline for filing insurance claims and revise existing policies that allow punitive penalties for missing FHA foreclosure deadlines could have a chilling effect on FHA lending and servicing, analysts warned. Housing policy analysts and industry attorneys say the two-part proposal issued on July 6 raises red flags for both borrowers and servicers and could potentially cause lenders to leave the FHA single-family mortgage insurance program. The Urban Institute describes the proposed rule as “a mixed bag, but on balance far more negative than positive.” “It represents a modest improvement to very harsh rules for missing established deadlines but imposes an unrealistic timeline for filing FHA insurance claims and an overly punitive penalty for missing that timeline,” the group said. Attorneys at K&L Gates in Washington, DC, are more ominous in their assessment of the ...

Many condominium projects in California are losing FHA and VA business because their agency approvals have lapsed or are about to expire, according to lenders. In Orange County alone, about 57 percent of condo developments have FHA or VA approvals that are near expiration, said Jon Shrum, vice president of Commerce Home Mortgage in Huntington Beach, CA. It is unclear how many developments have expired approvals but the number could be significant, Shrum said. Condos accounted for 2.9 percent of total FHA endorsements as of June 30, 2015, and that share has remained flat over the first six months of 2015 and on a year-over-year basis, according to FHA data. “We’re seeing a lot of condo complexes whose approvals are expiring, and they are not even aware of it,” he said. “As an FHA and VA lender, we try to reach out to the condo homeowners associations (HOA) to make sure they retain or renew their ...

The FHA has announced a new format for reporting results of quarterly post-endorsement technical reviews of single-family loans. Previously, the loan-level findings were grouped into five broad categories: file documentation, credit/underwriting, operation deficiencies, program eligibility and collateral/asset valuation. The top five reasons for an “unacceptable” rating were provided for each category. Loans were rated as “conforming,” “deficient,” or “unacceptable,” with the last two ratings based on the magnitude of the underwriting error. With the new format, the focus will be on the most prevalent unacceptable findings, regardless of category. The period upon which the reporting is based is also different, according to FHA.Instead of reporting the review findings on a loan sample in the most recent quarter, FHA will now wait for one quarter to pass before reporting on the sample. Emphasizing the frequency of ...

The VA Home Loan Guaranty Program has issued guidance to clarify the notification requirement applicable to all holders of VA repurchase and mobile-home mortgage loans. Under existing regulation, holders of VA repurchase and mobile-home loans are required to report to the Department of Veterans Affairs any event that leads to the full payment of a VA-backed loan. The guidance requires all holders to report the status of all VA repurchase and mobile-home mortgages upon full satisfaction of the loan. All notifications must be sent directly to the chief of contract assurance at nashpm.vbaco@va.gov. For further questions, contact Ronnie Lamb at ...

The FHA is developing standards that would allow FHA financing on homes with existing Property Assessed Clean Energy liens going forward. Specifically, the guidance would require subordination of PACE financing to first-lien FHA mortgages. The FHA is also working on a monitoring mechanism to track the number of PACE loans with FHA insurance in the future, said a HUD spokesman. Mortgage market analysts say FHA’s action could lead to broader adoption of the PACE program for FHA-insured single-family homes. The Mortgage Bankers Association, in a statement, applauded the move. “This modification should allow some homeowners to install energy improvements in their home but not impede the rights of the first lien, something the original PACE program failed to consider,” said David Stevens, MBA president and CEO. PACE programs allow local governments to raise bond-funded financing to ...

Another Cut in FHA Premiums Coming This Winter? Will the FHA take the bold step of cutting annual mortgage insurance premiums this winter? It’s an intriguing question posed by Capital Alpha Partners. The research firm, in a new report, quotes what it calls a “reliable FHA bull” who “presciently foresaw” the last premium cut. Alpha cautions that its source on the matter is not betting on such a move, but raises the possibility “that the tumblers could fall into place once again.” One possible catalyst for an MIP cut would be poor results from a forthcoming Home Mortgage Disclosure Act report that shows FHA as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not serving low-income borrowers very well. In January 2015, FHA implemented a half-percent reduction in annual mortgage insurance premiums. At the time, the Department of Housing and Urban Development predicted that 250,000 new homeowners would ...