Quicken Loan’s lawsuit against the government could help provide some certainty to lenders as to the proper legal standard for evaluating compliance with FHA rules and whether loan sampling is a permissible post-endorsement review strategy, according to legal experts. The adjudication of Quicken’s case against the Department of Justice in a public forum should clarify FHA policies, procedures, and the degree of future liability risks, experts said. Quicken Loans, the top FHA lender in 2014, sued the Department of Justice in federal court in Detroit April 17, accusing it of high-pressure tactics to admit wrongdoing and of using a small sample of flawed loans as a basis for claims under the False Claims Act. Up to that time, Quicken Loans had been the subject of an ongoing DOJ probe, which began three years earlier, in relation to its FHA lending practices. Quicken also asserted that, before filing its lawsuit ...

One thing investors and analysts look for is revenue growth and Ocwen Financial did not deliver. But at least all of its lending licenses are intact...

VA home loan guaranty originations nearly caught up with FHA single-family volume in the first quarter of 2015, thanks to a strong pickup in veteran loan refinancings, an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of Ginnie Mae issuance data indicated. Refi loans accounted for 58.5 percent of VA loans securitized in the first quarter compared to just 34.4 percent of FHA loans in Ginnie mortgage-backed securities. Approximately $35.0 billion in VA loans were securitized in Ginnie Mae MBS in the first quarter, up 5.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2014. On the other hand, $35.6 billion of FHA loans were securitized during the same period, down 1.8 percent from the prior quarter. Of the VA loans in Ginnie MBS, $14.5 billion were purchase mortgages, mostly delivered through retail and loan correspondents. Brokers accounted for only 8.5 percent of the purchase loans. Securitized VA purchase volume, however, was ... [2 charts]

Walter Investment Management’s Green Tree Servicing agreed to pay $48 million for consumer redress and a $15 million civil money penalty due to a settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission. The federal regulators alleged that Green Tree failed to honor modifications for loans transferred from other servicers, among other issues. The regulators said a large number of loans Green Tree acquired from ... [Includes two briefs]

The Treasury Department is making progress corralling various participants in the non-agency mortgage-backed security market, slowly prompting changes aimed at attracting large investors. The effort started nearly a year ago, when Michael Stegman, counselor to the Treasury on housing finance policy, first proposed the issuance of a benchmark transaction in November. “The benchmark transaction process has reset relationships among transaction parties and is ...

The timing of any hike in interest rates from the U.S. central bank has grown more uncertain in recent weeks, amid signs of significantly slower economic growth – a reality that was reflected in the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee reaffirming the status quo after its two-day meeting in Washington, DC, concluded mid-week. Hours before the FOMC’s statement was released, the Commerce Department announced that first-quarter gross domestic product slowed to a crawl of just 0.2 percent, compared with a 2.2 percent increase in the fourth quarter. “Information received since the FOMC met in March suggests...

A foreclosure case involving a mortgage pooled in a 2007 non-agency MBS has prompted competing amicus briefs from the Structured Finance Industry Group and California’s attorney general, among others. Yvanova v. New Century Mortgage is under consideration by California’s Supreme Court. The case hinges on whether a borrower can challenge a foreclosure based on a pooling and servicing agreement. The lower court previously ruled in favor of the lender, New Century Mortgage. “SFIG is...

New lenders that specialize in loans that don’t meet the government’s qualified-mortgage standards continue to draw up blueprints and raise capital – or at least try to – but very few of them are banking on securitization as a take-out strategy. However, all that may change with the launch of LendSure Financial Services, a San Diego startup headed by a handful of veterans from the subprime industry of yesteryear, including Jim Konrath, Stu Marvin and Joe Lydon. According to one non-agency investor briefed on LendSure’s plans, securitization is...

To attract large investors, the Treasury Department suggests that non-agency MBS include a deal agent with a fiduciary duty. “Under corporate law, directors must discharge two primary fiduciary duties: duty of care and duty of loyalty,” said Michael Stegman, counselor to the Treasury on housing finance policy, in a speech late last week. “In the context of private-label securitizations, these duties seemed sensible and logical to us.” He used...

Republican leaders in the Senate and the House plan to press ahead with legislation to provide regulatory relief for mortgage lenders, especially for small community banks. It’s likely that provisions to automatically designate mortgages held in portfolio as qualified mortgages will be included in a legislative package the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee will mark up sometime in the middle of May. And Republicans might use...