One of the boldest underwriting moves was taken by TD Bank, which recently announced a portfolio loan that has a downpayment requirement as low as 3 percent.

Reverse mortgages guaranteed by the government are due and payable upon the death of the homeowner, the sale of the home, and other conditions, including the failure to reside in the property or pay the taxes and insurance.

Lobbyists tracking the bill now believe that a “negotiated” final measure will not be ready for a full committee vote until possibly mid-May.

Meanwhile, rumors abound that Fannie and Freddie may once again be looking at the possibility of selling some of its nonperforming mortgages…

Lenders should expect additional enforcement actions from the CFPB along the lines of last year’s move against Castle & Cooke Mortgage LLC, where regulators targeted not just the firm but the executives making the decisions, warned Benjamin Olson, counsel at the law firm of Buckley Sandler. “While this is the only public action, it is certainly not the only action the bureau is currently undertaking” to enforce its loan originator compensation rules, said Olson, former deputy assistant director in the bureau’s Office of Regulations, during a webinar last week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance Publications, which publishes Inside the CFPB. “We are seeing civil investigative demands and the bureau’s equivalent to the subpoena, where the CFPB is diving into an...

A new research report from analysts at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services confirms earlier industry accounts that mortgage servicers are adapting to the CFPB’s newly implemented mortgage servicing rules, and that the rules are having the effects regulators intended. Back in 2013, S&P asked its ranked servicers to complete CFPB questionnaires as part of its semiannual Servicer Evaluation Analytical Methodology process. “We sent a questionnaire with our mid-year SEAM regarding compliance plans and readiness levels, and asked servicers to complete the questionnaires again after Jan. 10 [the implementation date of the new rules], to indicate their levels of compliance,” analysts at the ratings service said. The questionnaire included key areas of compliance: continuity of contact; dual-track foreclosure; servicing transfers; error...

Early stage implementation of the CFPB’s ability to repay rulemaking shows no major changes to origination strategies on the part of mortgage lenders, according to a recent report from Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. “Overall, the majority of our ranked originators are not making any major changes to their origination strategies as a result of the ATR/QM regulations,” S&P said. “Most originators will continue to focus their production efforts on their core origination products and expect their 2014 production mixes to be similar to those in 2013.” Additionally, lenders do not anticipate a significant change to the composition of their primary investors. In connection with Standard & Poor’s ongoing surveillance of its Mortgage Originator Review rankings, the ratings service requested...

The CFPB is largely ineffective at controlling mortgage risk and is already borderline obsolete, according to a former Wall Street professional now working in the halls of academia. To begin with, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, the architect of the bureau, and Richard Cordray, its current director, misunderstood the problem facing mortgage borrowers and lenders, according to Anthony Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University and former head of asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities research at Deutsche Bank in New York City.“Essentially, the world that Warren and Cordray wish that existed (1999) when real median household income was at its maximum and mortgage foreclosures were just above 1 percent doesn’t exist anymore,” the professor said in a...

Reps. Robert Pittenger, R-NC, and Denny Heck, D-WA, recently introduced H.R. 4383, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Small Business Advisory Board Act, which would require the CFPB to establish a small business advisory board. “Consumers, banks, and credit unions already provide valuable insight on what the CFPB proposes, but the smaller operators in finance have a tougher time being heard,” said Heck. “As a small business owner myself, I know local financial service providers in Washington state can partner with the CFPB to better protect consumers and give input on how CFPB actions affect customers and operations.” The Pittenger and Heck proposal would institute a board made up of at least 12 members who are “representatives of small business...

Sen. Dan Coats, R-IN, has introduced the Community Financial Protection Act, legislation to provide smaller financial institutions such as community banks and credit unions with some regulatory relief from financial regulations enacted after the 2008 financial crisis that many complain are crippling their businesses. The Coats bill would modify the way in which the CFPB requests information from financial institutions with less than $10 billion in assets. Under the Coats proposal, the CFPB must use publicly available information or seek the requested information from existing banking regulators. Specifically, the Community Financial Protection Act would stipulate that the CFPB must use current and existing publicly available information and data prior to requesting any information from the prudential regulator. Also, if the...