The provision, expected to raise $30 million for FHA quality assurance efforts, would allow the Department of Housing and Urban Development to charge a fee of no more than 4 basis points.
Ocwen Financial, which has been under intense regulatory scrutiny most of the year, stopped buying delinquent loans out of Ginnie Mae pools during the third quarter, according to a review of loan-level data by Inside MBS & ABS. The cessation of buyouts is unusual and has some MBS analysts scratching their heads, wondering whether more trouble could be afoot at the nation’s largest nonbank servicer. According to a new report from Barclays, the reduction in buyouts by Ocwen (as measured by prepayments) “could be due...[Includes one data chart]
Due-diligence and document-file reviews will key Fitch’s rating of residential MBS backed by re-performing loans and seasoned mortgage loan collateral, based on revised criteria, according to a recent report from Fitch Ratings. Fitch recently finalized its criteria for analyzing re-performing and seasoned loan RMBS to include closer attention to risk factors. Fitch uses its mortgage loan-loss model as well as representation-and-warranty and due-diligence reviews in analyzing the key risk drivers for RPLs. However, since the methodologies currently used by the rating agency were developed with an eye towards newly originated and seasoned performing collateral, RPL pools and some seasoned performing pools purchased in the secondary market are likely to be influenced...
Mortgage insurers are interested in moving forward with a year-old MBA proposal for a risk-sharing program that would allow deeper MI coverage on loans with high loan-to-value ratios.
Proponents of the non-agency market are concerned that the final rule recently issued by federal regulators setting risk-retention requirements for certain securitized mortgages includes an exemption for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Beginning in late 2015, risk-retention requirements for residential mortgages will apply to newly issued non-agency mortgage-backed securities collateralized by loans that don’t meet standards for qualified mortgages. Issuers or lenders contributing to ...
The FHA’s accounting of receivables from settled legal claims and partial claim notes is so sloppy that the exact amount collected might be difficult to gauge, according to an internal audit of the agency’s FY 2014 and 2013 financial statements. Conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Inspector General, the audit concluded that the FHA had booked receivables from seven cash settlements totaling $1.2 billion in FY 2014 but collected only $466.4 million of those settlements. In addition, during fiscal 2014, as part of its loss mitigation efforts to bring delinquent loans current, the FHA paid $4.4 billion to lenders for partial claims but never received the required promissory notes from the lenders for $1.5 billion of the claim payments. FHA rules require lenders to provide the agency with promissory notes for the payments made or ...
Reports that the Senate Appropriations Committee might include a proposed FHA administrative fee in the Senate’s spending bill for financial and housing agencies is causing a furor within the mortgage financing industry. Industry groups have come out in force, urging the leaders of the Senate committee to remove the provision from a continuing resolution to fund the government beyond Dec. 11. There is speculation that the House might go along with the fee. The provision, expected to raise $30 million for FHA quality assurance efforts, would allow the Department of Housing and Urban Development to charge a fee of no more than 4 basis points of the original principal balance of all FHA-insured mortgages a lender made in the previous fiscal year. HUD originally made the request in President Obama’s proposed FY 2015 budget. Over industry objections, the Senate later incorporated the ...