Contrarians may suspect a bubble, but analysts at DBRS said in a new report this week that credit card loan balances in the U.S. reached a new post-financial-crisis high in December 2016, which they characterized as a reflection of consumers’ “gradual inclination to judiciously undertake incremental credit card debt.” According to their analysis, credit card debt accelerated last year. “After steadily increasing over the past five years, growth in credit card debt accelerated in 2016 at an average monthly, year-over-year growth rate of 6.1 percent, compared to 4.2 percent in 2015, and 2.9 percent in 2014,” DBRS said. Citing the Federal Reserve data for December 2016, the analysts found...

More than a dozen mortgage and housing groups are backing a House bill that would prevent guaranty fees on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities from being hijacked to pay for unrelated government spending. A joint trade group letter, signed by the Mortgage Bankers Association, Community Mortgage Lenders of America, the American Bankers Association, U.S. Mortgage Insurers and others, argues that tapping g-fees for other unrelated purposes imposes an “unjustified burden” on homeowners who would be forced to pay for the increase through higher monthly payments for the life of their loan. Our organizations were...

The Trump administration looks to be taking sides with a mortgage lender that says the configuration of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is unconstitutional. The government, through the Department of Justice and the Solicitor General, usually sides with government agencies in court cases. But in the closely watched lawsuit involving PHH Mortgage and the CFPB, it’s expected to oppose the bureau’s stance. This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit approved...

As the mortgage industry waits for a definitive resolution to the legal dispute between PHH Mortgage and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, industry experts tried to glean some guidance on the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act from the bureau’s recent consent orders involving nonbank Prospect Mortgage and some of its partners. Earlier this year, the CFPB brought a $3.5 million enforcement action against Prospect, accusing the firm of illegal kickbacks for mortgage business referrals from two real estate brokers, and in an unusual twist, a mortgage servicing operation. The bureau also acted against ReMax Gold Coast and Keller Williams Mid-Willamette, the brokers, and Planet Home Lending, the mortgage servicer – all of whom it accused of taking illegal kickbacks from the lender. During a webinar this week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, Rodrigo Alba, senior vice president of mortgage finance and senior regulatory counsel for the American Bankers Association, said...

After years of confusion among servicers and borrowers, the Internal Revenue Service is getting closer to issuing guidance about how servicers should report interest to the IRS on mortgages that receive significant loan modifications. The Mortgage Bankers Association and the American Bankers Association recently submitted a joint comment letter to the agency, which announced plans to issue guidance on the matter back in December 2015. The trade groups said...

Late last month, Fairholme Capital chief Bruce Berkowitz sent out a press release reassuring his shareholders that the hedge fund’s bet on owning the junior preferred stock of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will prevail, eventually. Among other things, the veteran equity-fund manager extolled the government-sponsored enterprises’ massive fourth quarter profits of almost $10 billion, called them “indispensable” to the mortgage insurance industry and reminded readers they continue to fulfill “their historic role of insuring adequate levels of liquidity to lenders of all sizes.” He also mentioned...

The FHA is nearing full implementation of a new loan review system (LRS) for managing FHA’s Title II single-family quality-control processes. No specific implementation date has been set but it could be sometime in the second quarter, the agency said. The LRS builds on FHA’s efforts to align the documentation of loan-review results. In addition, it incorporates the Single-Family Housing Loan Quality Assessment Methodology or defect taxonomy.The FHA said the new system would not be used to manage any aspect of the agency’s standard loan origination or endorsement processes. Rather, it would be used to review of test cases submitted by lenders seeking unconditional direct-endorsement authority. It would be used as well for various post-endorsement reviews of forward single-family loans. After the ...

With servicing costs climbing the past five years, the issue of how much to pay residential loan processers is once again rearing its ugly head. And depending on who you talk to, the Treasury Department may take up the issue as well, especially since it controls the senior preferred stock of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. One industry advisor involved in the topic, speaking under the condition his name not be used, told...

As policymakers work toward housing finance reform, industry participants are forming plans to ensure that servicing issues are addressed. The Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center recently launched the Mortgage Servicing Collaborative, which will provide data on servicing issues and analyze possible solutions. “We are...

Each of the parties that were rebuffed recently in their attempts to intervene in the controversial legal dispute between PHH Corp. and the CFPB decided they wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. Each of them again filed a motion with the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seeking permission to intervene in the case, contrary to prevailing appeals court rules. Earlier this month, Democrat attorneys general from 16 states and the District of Columbia submitted a petition for rehearing en banc. Also, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-OH, and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, submitted a motion for rehearing en banc, as did a handful of public interest, consumer advocacy groups. All seek to inject themselves into the ...