The supply of single-family home loan debt in early 2016 grew for the fourth consecutive quarter to hit $10.008 trillion, its highest level in three and a half years, according to Federal Reserve data released late last week. The first-quarter gain was a modest 0.2 percent from the end of last year, and a 1.5 percent increase from March 2015. But the servicing market is a slow-changing glacier, and steady increases over the past year are another indicator that the mortgage market has largely recovered from the housing recession. Most of the gain came...[Includes two data tables]

Mortgage lending industry representatives were told to keep their expectations in check when it comes to the forthcoming TRID integrated-disclosure rulemaking from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is expected sometime this summer, perhaps as early as late July. “Everybody in the industry cheered when the bureau announced this,” attorney Richard Horn, the former CFPB official who led the development of the TRID rule, said this week during a panel discussion at the American Bankers Association’s regulatory compliance conference in San Diego. “I think...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to develop another rule to resolve some of the mortgage industry’s problems with the CFPB’s integrated disclosure rule may provide some psychological relief for lenders. But it’s certainly not solving any of the problems they are struggling with right now, problems that continue to emerge as the months since implementation roll on. Among the host of concerns that have sprung up related to the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure Rule – TRID – is the raft of issues having to do with settlement agents. Delivering a presentation at the American Bankers Association’s regulatory compliance conference this week, Richard Horn, a former CFPB official, said...

Two appraiser trade groups raised concerns this week that federal banking regulators are re-interpreting longstanding policy to exempt most of the mortgage market from appraisal rules. The American Society of Appraisers and the National Association of Independent Fee Appraisers published a white paper and wrote to leaders in Congress detailing positions taken by federal regulators regarding the application of appraisal standards included in the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act. Federal regulators are...

In a letter sent to CFPB Director Richard Cordray, the National Association of Realtors asked the agency to clarify that mortgage originators can share the closing disclosure (CD) form with third parties “if the lender receives a consent form from the consumer.” The trade group noted that, before the TRID rule was implemented, real estate agents aided their clients by answering questions about the HUD-1 and by reviewing terms agreed to in the sales contract, such as concessions, escrows, commissions and shares of prorated taxes.

According to investors in scratch-and-dent TRID mortgages and traders who play in the space, auctions of mortgages with errors (of all sorts) have continued apace ever since the CFPB announcement on TRID 2.0 rulemaking in early May and show little sign of slowing down. At the same time, the TRID mortgage disclosure rule appears to be less of an obstacle for the jumbo mortgage-backed securities market these days as JPMorgan Chase prepares a deal that will include residential loans subject to the rule.

Fannie Mae recently provided sellers with a little more guidance on its expectations related to lender self-reporting of errors in complying with the CFPB’s new disclosure regime under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.

The 11th annual Xerox Path to Paperless Survey finds what appears to be an accelerated pace toward making the paperless mortgage a reality. And the CFPB’s integrated disclosure rule known as TRID is apparently helping.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, rolled out some of the details of a Republican proposal to replace the Dodd-Frank Act, the Financial CHOICE (Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs) Act. The proposal includes the text of a measure already passed by the House, which would provide a QM safe harbor for any mortgage that has been held in portfolio by a depository institution since origination.

The CFPB has issued its long-awaited payday lending proposed rule, in essence a highly restrictive ability-to-repay rule for small-dollar lending. Under the proposed full-payment test, lenders would be required to determine whether the borrower can afford the full amount of each payment when it’s due and still meet basic living expenses and major financial obligations.