Naysayers have been predicting the demise of publicly traded mortgage real estate investment trusts for two years now and have been consistently disappointed. It’s hard to say whether things will be different this time around. According to figures compiled by Inside MBS & ABS, it appears that most REITs have been intentionally reducing their MBS holdings over the past several quarters, preparing for the day when bond prices finally fall. At Sept. 30, 16 publicly traded REITs held...[Includes one data chart]

Mortgage securitization rates continued to trend lower through the first nine months of 2014 as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac captured a smaller share of the conventional conforming market. A new Inside MBS & ABS analysis reveals that 70.4 percent of home loans originated during the first nine months of the year were packaged into MBS. For all of 2013, the securitization rate was 78.5 percent, and it reached as high as 84.4 percent in 2009, the first year following the financial meltdown. A key factor is...[Includes one data chart]

By some measurements, the market for commercial MBS backed by single-family rental units has been successful, drawing investors from Wall Street, the hedge fund community and overseas. But that success, to some degree, is beginning to worry the Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research. Moreover, the OFR also is expressing anxieties about mortgage real estate investment trusts and repurchase agreements. As of September 2014, roughly $5 billion of single-family rental MBS had been issued...

The migration of mortgage servicing rights from “more tightly to less tightly regulated parts of the financial system” should be addressed by regulators, according to the Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research. The OFR, which was created by the Dodd-Frank Act to serve the Financial Stability Oversight Council, said Basel capital requirements have created incentives for banks to sell MSRs to nonbanks. In its annual report, the OFR cautioned that nonbanks aren’t as well regulated as banks. “Mortgage servicing activity and the accompanying risks appear...

The Obama administration announced increased incentive payments for borrowers in the non-agency Home Affordable Modification Program along with an increase in funds for borrowers that need relocation assistance as part of a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. Meanwhile, there are concerns that the HAMP program for mortgages serviced by the government-sponsored enterprises hasn’t been extended to match the non-agency program. The changes to the non-agency HAMP were announced late last week by the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HAMP borrowers will be eligible...

If mortgage lenders thought fair lending compliance was tough now, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s pending Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rulemaking may well turn enforcement into a hornet’s nest in the very near future, according to one top attorney. “The data to be reported under the CFPB’s proposal is likely to inflame the current fair lending regulatory environment,” said Warren Traiger, counsel at the BuckleySandler law firm, during a webinar this week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance. “The Dodd-Frank Act itself specified...

Michael Levitis, principal of the Mission Settlement Agency (a debt-settlement company), was slapped with a nine-year prison sentence and ordered to pay $2.2 million in restitution and a fine of $15,000 after pleading guilty to several charges brought in response to the CFPB’s first publicly announced criminal referral to the U.S. Department of Justice last year. Levitis pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, and another count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He has been ordered to surrender for service of his sentence on Feb. 23, 2015, at an institution to be determined by the state Bureau of Prisons. Upon release from imprisonment, Levitis will be on supervised release for a term ...

Last week, the CFPB asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to enter a consent order requiring Premier Consulting Group to pay a civil penalty of $69,075 – accusing the firm of charging consumers illegal upfront fees for debt-settlement services they never received – and to take other steps to prevent future legal violations. That sum represents the amount of advance fees the company took from consumers who did not have any debt settled, according to the bureau. Included in the CFPB’s legal action was the law office of Michael Lupolover. Both firms are based in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Premier Consulting “took advantage of consumers in financial distress, charging tens of thousands of dollars for services they ...

Toyota Motor Credit Corp., the captive finance arm of Toyota, recently revealed that it has received a letter from the CFPB and the Justice Department alleging that certain practices related to discretionary dealer markup resulted in discriminatory lending aimed at minorities and low-income borrowers. In a recent Form 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, TMCC said the agencies have requested certain information about the company’s purchases of auto finance contracts from dealers as well as related discretionary pricing practices. “On Nov. 25, 2014, we received from the agencies a letter alleging that such practices resulted in discriminatory pricing of loans to certain borrowers in contravention of applicable laws, and informing us that they are prepared to initiate an ...

The tug of war between the CFPB and the Morgan Drexen firm took an unusual twist late last month, with the company firing a public relations salvo in the form of an open letter to attorneys nationwide, calling on them to “stand up against the CFPB and defend access to affordable legal services for disadvantaged Americans.” “Affordable legal care in America is under fire by the CFPB, and without quick and decisive action, the legal support that millions of Americans need may be eliminated,” the firm’s letter said. “It is vital that we, as an industry, stand together to draw a hard line and demand that our representatives in Congress rein in a bureau that has specifically not been given ...