The chatter about the Federal Reserve shrinking its massive $4.5 trillion balance sheet and its huge $1.7 trillion portfolio of agency MBS has continued in recent days, with one Fed official talking up the idea and another describing how the U.S. central bank plans to do it. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said in a speech last week that the Fed could begin normalizing its balance sheet. “The Fed’s balance sheet has been an important monetary policy tool during the period of near-zero policy rates,” Bullard said. Thus far, the Fed’s Open Market Committee has not set...

A key Republican leader in the House of Representatives is looking to push legislation that would effectively neuter critical aspects of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that could lead to major changes in the agency’s oversight functions and capabilities, including mortgage rulemaking, supervision and enforcement. The congressman also indicated he might use a procedural technique related to the budget to ram his legislation past Democrat opponents in the Senate. The legislative vehicle of choice is...

The secondary market for bulk agency mortgage servicing rights is beginning to pick up a decent head of steam, but one factor is holding it back from a full-throttle: worries about prepayment speeds. “We’ve had one month of low prepayment numbers,” said Mark Garland, president of MountainView Servicing Group, Denver. “A couple of more months would be better.” According to investment bankers who work the market, although rates have been on a steady climb since the November election – the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury is...

Despite some reports of credit access loosening, it’s harder to get a mortgage today than it was during the housing bubble, according to the Urban Institute. With borrowers being denied at a much higher rate than in the past, lower-credit mortgage applicants are dropping out of the housing market. As access to credit tightened after the financial crisis, many lower-credit applicants were discouraged from applying, the UI study noted. That led to a higher-credit applicant pool, which in turn led to a lower rejection rate. This caused...

President Donald Trump has put the Dodd-Frank Act in his crosshairs, issuing an executive order earlier this month that directs the Treasury secretary to work with the members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council to review the current regulatory regime and evaluate it according to a handful of “core principles” Trump believes should shape the regulation of the U.S. financial system. The principles include fostering informed consumer choices, preventing bailouts, promoting economic growth, tailoring regulations and ensuring regulatory accountability. Industry observers and Republicans and Democrats alike on Capitol Hill saw the order as the beginning of an attack on Dodd-Frank and perhaps even a shot across the bow of the CFPB, with negative implications for the agency’s mortgage lending and ...

The CFPB recently brought a more traditional interpretation to its enforcement of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act in an action against Prospect Mortgage, two real estate brokers and a mortgage servicer that focuses on alleged kickbacks for referrals of mortgage business. Among the lender’s alleged violations of RESPA was the use of lead agreements to pay brokers for referrals. According to the CFPB’s consent order, Prospect entered into such agreements with more than 200 different counterparties, most of which were real estate brokers. Under these arrangements, Prospect paid the counterparty for each lead it received. However, these counterparties went “well beyond simply transferring information about prospective buyers,” the CFPB alleged. They also referred prospective buyers to Prospect’s loan officers....

In addition to bringing an enforcement action against Prospect Mortgage for alleged violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the CFPB also acted against ReMax Gold Coast and Keller Williams Mid-Willamette, two real estate brokers, and Planet Home Lending, a mortgage servicer – all of whom it accused of taking illegal kickbacks from the lender. Specifically, the CFPB accused both brokers of participating in “certain lead agreements and desk license agreements” with Prospect Mortgage, and of accepting payments from the lender in exchange for referrals in violation of RESPA and its implementing regulation, Regulation X.The bureau also said RGC’s agents “required hundreds of consumers wishing to place an offer on one of their properties offered for sale to pre-qualify ...

An analysis by the Mortgage Bankers Association of the CFPB’s latest foray back into the enforcement of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act noted that some of the allegations in the consent orders would have been troubling under the enforcement regime of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.However, the orders also highlight several new points in the way the bureau is enforcing Section 8 of RESPA, the MBA said. “These include that the arrangements steer consumers, exclude other competitors, and were arrived at based on internal analyses of business and that click-throughs to lenders in joint marketing arrangements somehow amount to compensated referrals,” the trade group said. Further, the consent order addressing Planet Home Lending also clarifies that ...

PHH Corp. won another round against some new antagonists in its dispute with the CFPB over alleged violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. Earlier this month, a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed with the lender and refused to allow three separate efforts to intervene in the case. In a simple, single-page order, the three judges “ordered that the motions be denied.” The ruling affects an effort by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-OH, and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, to insert themselves in the case on behalf of the CFPB. The lawmakers had warned the appeals court that if their effort to intervene was denied, they would seek recourse from ...

Hensarling Threatens to Use Budget Reconciliation Process to Push Through CHOICE Act 2.0. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, raised some industry eyebrows last week when details of his new, more aggressive Financial CHOICE Act got leaked to the press, and he indicated he might use the budget reconciliation process to push the bill through Congress.... CFPB Brings Legal Action Against Debt Relief Law Firms, Attorneys. The CFPB recently sued Howard Law PC, Williamson Law Firm LLC, and Williamson & Howard LLP, as well as attorneys Vincent Howard and Lawrence Williamson, in federal court, accusing them of collaborating to charge illegal fees to consumers looking for debt relief....