Supporters of using eminent domain to resolve underwater but performing non-agency mortgages succeeded in placing their proposal back on the front burner in California this week. On Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to convene in closed session later this month with the city attorney’s office for advice on “anticipated litigation relating to the potential negotiation or adoption of a joint powers agreement with the city of Richmond [CA] to establish a homeownership stabilization authority to assist homeowners with troubled mortgages.” The board opted...
Here's a fact that most readers may not know: the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 grants the FHFA the authority to bring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of conservatorship.
A federal judge in New York has cleared the way for investors to proceed with a $10 billion class-action suit against JPMorgan in relation to the 2007 sale of non-agency MBS. Judge Paul Oetken of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, however, limited the scope of the class-action suit to JPMorgan’s liability but did not certify as to damage. Explaining his decision to narrow the scope of the suit, Oetken said...
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s release of a final rule setting loan-level disclosure requirements for certain structured finance products has only slightly reduced the uncertainty regarding the impact of the so-called Reg AB2 requirements. Among other issues, the SEC left parts of its initial proposal from 2010 unfinished, with no indication of if or when further action will be taken. For example, the SEC had originally proposed extending loan-level disclosure requirements to the 144A private-placement market in addition to requiring such disclosures for certain SEC-registered securities, including residential MBS, commercial MBS, ABS backed by auto loans and re-securitizations of such collateral. At the recent ABS East conference produced by Information Management Network in Miami Beach, Rolaine Bancroft, a senior special counsel at the SEC, said...
Another refi boomlet? One Long Island-based mortgage executive told us this: “Locks doubled from the day before and are up 30 percent over the previous 10 days”…
Mortgage underwriting standards are relaxing somewhat, according to a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance, particularly as production has shifted from a focus on refinances to purchase mortgages. However, underwriting standards are much more stringent than they were before the financial crisis, with few options available for nonprime borrowers. The average credit score on purchase mortgages included...
The U.S. Supreme Court gets another crack at deciding whether plaintiffs can bring a disparate-impact lawsuit under the Fair Housing Act (and by extension, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act), a question that has divided courts, lenders and consumer advocacy groups for years. The court’s partial grant of the petition in the Texas case would be its third opportunity in two years to rule on the controversial question. Two prior cases raising that issue, Township of Mount Holly v. Mt. Holly Gardens Citizen Action, Inc. and Magner v. Gallagher, were both settled before oral argument could be presented before the court. SCOTUS has agreed...
The Mortgage Bankers Association is on a mission to convince banking regulators to revisit the Basel III capital standards and to change the cap on how much mortgage servicing rights can count toward Tier I capital. The way things stand now, MSRs will be capped at 10 percent of capital when the rule is fully phased in, with the excess deducted from a depository’s “common equity.” Previously, the cap was 100 percent. In a draft letter to the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the MBA argues...
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