Home prices in many areas have fully recovered from the declines seen during the financial crisis, according to a variety of home price indices. While prices above levels seen before the financial crisis could cause alarms about another housing bubble, Sean Becketti, chief economist at Freddie Mac, is seeking to ease concerns. Last week, Freddie economists published an in-depth analysis of home price trends and median household income. They said the house price-to-income ratio appears to be the clearest indicator of the long-run sustainability of house prices. And even the PTI ratios that are relatively high in specific areas don’t necessarily indicate that there’s another housing bubble. “Based on this approach, we’re...

A coalition of multi-sectoral groups is urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to work with other federal agencies to provide strong protections for mortgage applicants and homeowners who have limited English proficiency (LEP). The Americans for Financial Reform, an umbrella organization for more than 200 civil rights, consumer, labor, business, investors, faith-based, and civic and community groups, said that while the CFPB has taken steps to assist LEP consumers, the agency and federal banking regulators should go further to make the mortgage marketplace fully and fairly accessible to these consumers. “Mortgage origination and servicing must be...

A new jumbo MBS from Redwood Trust will mark the second non-agency MBS to include mortgages subject to the TRID mortgage disclosure rule. The real estate investment trust plans to issue a $344.89 million deal next week, according to a presale report from Kroll Bond Rating Agency. The rating service said 366 mortgages, accounting for 74.8 percent of the loan pool, are subject to the combined Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act rule. Redwood will issue...

HSBC Bank has filed a summons with notice in the New York State Supreme Court on Bank of America and Merrill Lynch to appear and face charges alleging complicity in the origination and sale of toxic mortgage loans that led to millions of dollars in losses to investors. Filed last week, the summons alleges that BofA, Merrill Lynch and Countrywide Home Loans were aware of the defects in approximately 1,359 residential mortgage loans that were securitized and sold to investors in 2007. The loans had an aggregate principal balance of $564.8 million. According to filing documents, Merrill Lynch purchased...

A strong spring home-buying season and continued low rates are feeding optimism among selected lenders, fueling hopes that healthy production in May will lead to an even better June, according to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance. “May was bigger than April by 10 to 15 percent at both Skyline and New Leaf,” said Bill Dallas, CEO of Skyline Lending, Calabasas, CA. (New Leaf is the wholesale affiliate.) Not too long ago, Dallas wasn’t feeling all that optimistic about 2016. But that was then. “The year started out...

Wells Fargo, the nation’s top-ranked mortgage lender, appears to have escaped unscathed from the scrutiny the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau directed toward a former loan officer, an investigation which resulted in an $85,000 fine and a one-year ban from working in the mortgage industry. Last week, the CFPB announced a consent order with David Eghbali, formerly an LO for Wells’ Wilshire Crescent branch in Beverly Hills, CA, from November 2007 through July 2015. The bureau accused him of referring a substantial number of loan closings to a single escrow company, New Millennium Escrow, Inc., which allegedly shifted its fees from some customers to others at his request. “In exchange for the flexibility to shift fees from some loans to others, respondent [Eghbali] referred...

Maybe it’s just a matter of semantics. But mortgage lending trade group officials, industry attorneys and compliance professionals seem to be sending mixed signals as to whether the CFPB is now examining lenders for compliance with the controversial integrated disclosure rule, TRID. Rod Alba, senior vice president of mortgage markets, financial management and public policy for the American Bankers Association, told Inside the CFPB that his organization is not hearing that the bureau has started TRID compliance reviews. “Although our members report that examiners are inquiring about TRID implementations, and may be looking at one or another disclosure packet, they are generally assuring that the bank is engaged in active TRID implementation and trouble-shooting,” Alba said. “The banks we heard ...

The CFPB last week filed an administrative consent order against a former Wells Fargo employee, for running an alleged illegal mortgage “fee-shifting” scheme, fining him $85,000 and banning him from working in the mortgage industry for a year. The bureau accused David Eghbali, formerly a loan officer for the Wilshire Crescent Wells Fargo branch in Beverly Hills, CA, of referring a substantial number of loan closings to a single escrow company, New Millennium Escrow, Inc., which allegedly shifted its fees from some customers to others at his request. “While employed by Wells Fargo from November 2007 through July 2015, in connection with originating federally related mortgage loans to consumers primarily for personal, family or household purposes, respondent provided real-estate settlement ...

The CFPB’s pending Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rule significantly expands the industry’s data-reporting requirements – and the risk of possible disclosure of a borrower’s personal information along with it – something the bureau still has not addressed to the industry’s satisfaction, according to one top attorney. “The implementation date of the rule is fast approaching and the mortgage industry still has not received any answers in regards to their data privacy concerns,” Craig Nazzaro, of counsel in the Atlanta office of the Baker Donelson law firm, said in a blog posting earlier this month. He noted that mortgage industry representatives have repeatedly raised their privacy concerns about the new rule with the bureau. However, “the CFPB has thus far avoided addressing these ...

Consumer complaints about their mortgages fell from the second-most complained about financial product or service in March, after debt collection, to third place in the CFPB’s monthly ranking for April. Credit reporting moved up into the second slot. The latest data show 7,300 consumer gripes to the CFPB last month, based on the bureau’s three-month rolling average. That was down 9 percent since the prior month. There were 4,587 consumer criticisms related to credit reporting in April, off 6 percent from March’s level.And mortgage-related kvetching dropped 12 percent, down to 4,347 notices. These three products accounted for about 68 percent of the 23,870 complaints submitted in April of this year. Elsewhere in the data mix, complaints about payday lending ...