Rep. Ed Royce of California: "Money coming in from the GSEs should go to the taxpayers instead of a slush fund for ideological housing groups to play around with.”

A proposed FHA administrative fee as high as 4 basis points to fund quality assurance enforcement and technology upgrades also went down in flames.

But there's one little wrinkle: the GSEs cannot pass the cost of funding the HTF onto lenders…

The migration of mortgage servicing rights from “more tightly to less tightly regulated parts of the financial system” should be addressed by regulators, according to the Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research. The OFR, which was created by the Dodd-Frank Act to serve the Financial Stability Oversight Council, said Basel capital requirements have created incentives for banks to sell MSRs to nonbanks. In its annual report, the OFR cautioned that nonbanks aren’t as well regulated as banks. “Mortgage servicing activity and the accompanying risks appear...

The Obama administration announced increased incentive payments for borrowers in the non-agency Home Affordable Modification Program along with an increase in funds for borrowers that need relocation assistance as part of a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. Meanwhile, there are concerns that the HAMP program for mortgages serviced by the government-sponsored enterprises hasn’t been extended to match the non-agency program. The changes to the non-agency HAMP were announced late last week by the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HAMP borrowers will be eligible...

If mortgage lenders thought fair lending compliance was tough now, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s pending Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rulemaking may well turn enforcement into a hornet’s nest in the very near future, according to one top attorney. “The data to be reported under the CFPB’s proposal is likely to inflame the current fair lending regulatory environment,” said Warren Traiger, counsel at the BuckleySandler law firm, during a webinar this week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance. “The Dodd-Frank Act itself specified...

The Conference of State Bank Supervisors is working on capital requirements for nonbank servicers, a story first reported by Inside Mortgage Finance last month.

The FHA temporary waiver was issued in November of last year and now has been extended to Aug. 31, 2016.

Compared to two years ago, staffing levels at the CFPB have increased a whopping 55 percent. Of course, Congress has no say over the agency’s budget.

Sen, Menedez added: “These [programs] were not the drivers of the financial crisis. We’re going to hear the opposite of that in the next session of Congress.”