Requiring an undercapitalized issuer to repurchase uninsured performing mortgages out of a mortgage-backed securities pool could increase risk to the federal government, warned Ginnie Mae. Responding to an adverse audit report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General, Ginnie said that while it generally accepts the IG’s recommendations, forcing an undercapitalized issuer to buy out performing loans and either hold them in portfolio or sell them at a substantial loss would put the government at greater risk. “This is something we need to be alert to in certain cases,” the agency said. According to the report, Ginnie improperly allowed more than $49 million of single-family mortgages with terminated insurance to remain in its MBS pools for more than one year without obtaining FHA coverage. The IG warned Ginnie could be on the ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s integrated disclosure rule has now been in effect for a full year, and industry officials hope the potholes and speedbumps in the TRID road will continue to smooth out. Former CFPB official Benjamin Olson, now a partner with the BuckleySandler law firm in Washington, DC, noted that the first year of the TRID rule has been eventful. “In its early stages, the TRID rule proved to be far more disruptive than many envisioned, largely because of extraordinarily high rates of real and perceived errors and pervasive uncertainty over the liability associated with those errors,” he told Inside Mortgage Finance. Over time, the mortgage industry has been...

Wells Fargo – no doubt – is taking it on the chin for its “account fabrication” scandal tied to credit cards and deposits, but so far the damage has yet to seep into its mortgage business in a major way, but reports suggest certain correspondents are balking at doing business with the megabank. Dave Akre, managing director of Five Oaks Investment Corp., said he knows some loan officers working for Wells correspondents who are no longer offering the megabank’s jumbo products “due to recent issues.” Those “issues,” he pointed out in an interview with Inside Mortgage Finance, involve...

In its thirst to expand further into financial services, IBM recently agreed to buy blue-chip advisory firm Promontory Financial Group, but there are two units that “Big Blue” won’t be getting: Promontory MortgagePath LLC and Promontory Interfinancial. According to industry officials, both units will continue to be owned (at least in part) by PFG founder Eugene Ludwig, the former Comptroller of the Currency who started the firm in 2001. Promontory Interfinancial is considered...

Many participants in the mortgage industry remain concerned that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau did not address additional cure provisions in its proposed rulemaking to clarify the integrated consumer disclosure known as TRID. Lenders would love to see the bureau respond to these concerns when it finalizes its so-called TRID 2.0 rule. But that might not happen without Congress getting involved. During a webinar last week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, some attendees inquired...

Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data released last week show a somewhat more efficient mortgage market in 2015 as fewer loan applications were declined and more turned into originated loans. Lenders processed $2.576 trillion in mortgage applications filed in 2015, converting them into $1.651 trillion in purchase and refinance originations, a 32.9 percent increase from the previous year. Some 56.5 percent of loan apps turned into closed loans, up from 53.8 percent in 2014, and the overall denial rate fell 2.9 points to 20.1 percent. Most of last year’s origination surge came...[Includes one data table]

Rank-and-file mortgage lending industry participants continue to submit to the CFPB a range of problems and issues they are encountering with the bureau’s Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure Rule, commonly known as TRID, and its clarifying rulemaking.One credit union official wrote that members (and borrowers served by community banks) are being coached by loan officers to “be patient and trust” that their final fees will be lower than what is shown on the loan estimate (LE). And the larger issue is that consumers are becoming less engaged in understanding their finances due to the complexities of the rule, she said. “Somehow, in trying to make lending conditions better for the consumer, something far worse ...

One of the fascinating things about sifting through all of the 1,200+ industry comments on the CFPB’s TRID clarifying proposed rulemaking as they are posted on the regulations.gov website is to notice the success the American Land Title Association and its membership are having in flooding the agency’s inbox with their concerns. The overwhelming majority of individual comment letters submitted to the CFPB to date all start with the same introductory language, including the reproduction of a typo, as follows: “I am [sic] title insurance professional and I am contacting you today about the proposed rulemaking on TRID. As a settlement agent, it’s important that I am not penalized for compliance errors made by a lender.” This suggests that commenters ...

With the one-year anniversary of the CFPB’s TRID rule now upon us, a new survey from the American Land Title Association finds that a vast swath of the homebuying population is either confused or feels taken advantage of by the calculation of title insurance fees on the new mortgage disclosures. Among the survey’s chief findings, 40 percent of consumers are confused by the new closing disclosure calculation of title insurance. “Under TRID, consumers are disclosed a price for their two title insurance policies that is different than the actual price they will pay at closing,” ALTA said. Also, homeowners want a detailed breakdown of all the costs for a service, the survey found. “At the closing table, homebuyers expect the ...

Official regulatory reviews for compliance with the CFPB’s TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule are now underway at the bureau and among the prudential regulators, according to top industry attorneys. Speaking during a webinar last week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, former CFPB official Benjamin Olson, now a partner with the BuckleySandler law firm in Washington, DC, stated, “We can confirm that, yes, the CFPB and the other regulators, as part of their mortgage origination exams, are including TRID modules and looking at TRID compliance.” He reminded the audience that the bureau has been emphatic that these will be diagnostic reviews. “I haven’t seen anything inconsistent with that with respect to the reviews of our clients out of the CFPB,” Olson said...