The Trump administration late last week filed its amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in PHH Corp. v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and, as expected, sided with the lender this time around, but didn’t go as far as some had hoped it would. In its brief, the Department of Justice argued in support of eliminating the removal-only-for-cause protection that currently applies to the director of the CFPB. However, whereas PHH has argued that the CFPB be eliminated in its entirety, the Trump administration argued in favor of retaining the CFPB, but with a director removable at the will of the president. Currently, the director may be removed...

Congress should pass legislation setting uniform standards for qualified mortgages, according to the U.S. Mortgage Insurers trade group. USMI raised particular concerns about differences in the points-and-fees calculation for FHA mortgages compared with the standard for mortgages delivered to the government-sponsored enterprises. As required by the Dodd-Frank Act, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau established standards for QMs. Certain federal regulators, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, were allowed to implement QM standards that differed from the CFPB standards. USMI noted...

With the enforcement of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act at stake, and a hostile occupant in the Oval Office, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is certainly not being bashful about continuing its regulation-by-enforcement modus operandi. The recent enforcement action against Prospect Mortgage is just the latest example. According to Colgate Selden, a partner in the Washington, DC, office of the law firm of Alston & Bird, the case is important because “it indicates the CFPB is moving full-speed ahead regardless” of the recent court rulings in PHH v. CFPB. This case is...

Thanks to strong growth in the agency market, the supply of single-family MBS outstanding continued to grow over the final three months of 2016, a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis reveals. Agency MBS outstanding pushed to a new record, $6.034 trillion, as of the end of last year. The biggest gainer continued to be Ginnie Mae, which reported a 2.2 percent increase in the fourth quarter and a 7.7 percent gain for the year. Freddie Mac matched Ginnie’s fourth-quarter increase, but its year-to-date gain was smaller, 4.2 percent. Fannie Mae had...[Includes two data tables]

For the third time in as many years, the U.S. Federal Reserve decided to raise the federal funds rate by 25 basis points this week, as widely expected – only this time, the Fed didn’t wait until the very end of the year. The FOMC’s revised projections are for two additional quarter-point rate hikes later this year, three next year and three or four the year after. World stock indexes rallied...

Ginnie Mae’s outdated organizational structure and staff levels have made it difficult for the agency to properly monitor and mitigate the risk posed by the increasing number of nonbanks participating in its MBS programs, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general. In a recent briefing paper, HUD Inspector General David Montoya highlighted challenges Ginnie faces in monitoring nonbanks, adding that HUD is currently being audited by the IG to gauge its capacity to track and supervise nonbanks, said Montoya. Ginnie acknowledged...

Tax reform may have a significant impact on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, before federal policymakers get around to resolving the long-running conservatorships of the two government-sponsored enterprises. Reducing the corporate tax rate is a big component of the Trump administration’s tax reform plan, but it could force the GSEs to write down the value of their deferred tax assets. “It is...

In a prominent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholder case, the government was ordered to go back through thousands of documents related to the Treasury sweep to determine whether they fall under the executive privilege that has been more narrowly defined. In an attempt to make sure the government asserted privilege properly on the 11,000 documents it is withholding, Federal Claims Court Judge Margaret Sweeney asked it to reexamine the large batch and turn over any that don’t merit secrecy by April 17. This order follows...

As interest rates increase and refinance business shrinks, some lenders are putting an emphasis on non-qualified mortgages. “CashCall Mortgage’s business in refinance has fallen off; it is now targeting a different section of the marketplace,” Joe Tomkinson, chairman and CEO of Impac Mortgage Holdings, said during the nonbank’s recent earnings call. “Now we are bringing a product that is very real estate friendly to the marketplace, and we will see an increase in that.” Most of ...

The volume of home mortgages outstanding continued to grow during the final three months of 2016, no thanks to the commercial banking industry. Recently released data from the Federal Reserve show $10.266 trillion of mortgage debt outstanding at the end of last year. That was up 0.7 percent for the quarter and reflected a 2.3 percent gain for the full year. The market still has a long way to go to catch up to the $11.240 trillion of mortgage debt outstanding at the end of 2007, but growth has been steady since bottoming out in mid-2014. The agency market continued...[Includes two data tables]