Roughly 2 percent of depositories said they will cease offering mortgages altogether because of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability to repay rule and QM standards.

FHA chief Carol Galante reminded lenders that mortgage premium increases – five hikes from 2008 to 2013 – were necessary to protect the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund and properly price for the risk the government insurer was taking on.

PHH Mortgage has been on the auction block for at least two months. One called the sale “mission impossible.”

Did the FHFA late last summer/early fall raise concerns regarding a certain nonbank servicer’s capital in regard to a huge portfolio of mortgage servicing rights that it had bought earlier in the year from a megabank?

The terms of the MBS settlement are subject to approval by the Federal Housing Finance Agency due to Freddie Mac’s involvement.

“A few groups have taken a walk through the offices in Cherry Hill,” said a source close to PHH. “People are starting to notice – and leave.”

Another suggestion is to increase the $100,000 threshold for “smaller loans” to $200,000 allowing for mortgage amounts beneath that level to be subject to more workable points-and-fees limits.

The chairman and CEO of CapWealth Advisors – a private equity firm with stakes in the GSEs – was critical of all the housing reform bills introduced so far and the premise that Fannie and Freddie need to be wound down to affect reform.

Since late last year, the FHFA has decreed that it must approve any GSE servicing sale of 25,000 loans or more, which translates into roughly $5 billion of product.

Will the Ocwen-Wells MSR deal ever get approved? In time, but...