Cart

Inside Mortgage Finance

May 19, 2011

View Archived Issues

Brokers Lose Out as Lenders Increasingly Shift Production Focus to Retail Channel

The mortgage broker industry saw a huge decline in new origination volume during the first quarter of 2011 as lenders appeared to focus on shoring up their retail channels in the face of a major slowdown in new lending volume. A new ranking and analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance reveals that the mortgage broker share of the market fell to a record low 7.1 percent during the first three months of 2011. Broker originations plummeted 59.6 percent from the fourth quarter to a record low of just $23 billion. In fact, the top three lenders in the market each generated more retail production than the entire broker channel did during... [Includes four data charts] Read More

New Combined Single Mortgage Disclosure is One Step Closer as CFPB to Begin Testing Prototypes

Can I afford this mortgage, and can I get a better deal somewhere else? Those are the two questions the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants borrowers to be able to answer when it is finished producing a new mortgage disclosure form that combines and would ultimately replace those required under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. This week, the CFPB released two alternate prototypes for industry and public review and comment, part of its Know Before You Owe project. The goal is to create a single, simpler form that makes the costs and risks of the loan clear and allows consumers to... Read More

Lawmakers Introduce Legislation to Establish Tough National Mortgage Servicing Standards

New legislation introduced in both the House and the Senate would impose tough national mortgage servicing standards, with plenty of sticks and barely a single carrot. Early last week, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-OR, and Olympia Snowe, R-ME, introduced the Regulation of Mortgage Servicing Act to help homeowners stay in their homes by making the rules for mortgage servicers "more fair and transparent." The bill would require mortgage servicers to create a single point of contact for borrowers, end dual-track processing of foreclosures while homeowners are negotiating a modification, and provide an independent, third-party review before sending a family into... Read More

Experts Agree on Need for National Servicing Standards and Difficulty in Developing Them

All the witnesses at a hearing late last week in the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development agreed that national mortgage servicing standards are a necessity, but they acknowledged that the trick is deciding what they will cover and how they will work in an environment ridden with competing problems. "Servicers do not believe that the rules that apply to everyone else apply to them," said Diane Thompson, counsel at the National Consumer Law Center. "This lawless attitude, supported by financial incentives and too-often tolerated by regulators, is the root cause of the failure of... Read More

Bill Would Replace GSEs, Maintain Government Role In MBS Market Through Private/Public 'Associations'

A proposed bipartisan bill that would dissolve Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but retain an explicit government guarantee for certain mortgage-backed securities is either dangerously unfeasible or it's a measured way to preserve the government's role in housing finance, along with the 30-year mortgage, according to industry observers. Filed last late week, H.R. 1859, the Housing Finance Reform Act of 2011, would phase out the government-sponsored enterprises within five years and replace them with privately capitalized entities authorized to issue MBS that carry a government guarantee. The bill would empower the Federal Housing Finance Agency to issue... Read More

Many Years After WaMu’s Demise, FDIC Sues Firms That Provided Flawed Appraisals to Defunct Thrift

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has sued two appraisal service providers for allegedly flawed appraisals on some 414 mortgage loans that caused millions of dollars in losses to the now-defunct Washington Mutual Bank. Separate complaints were filed May 9 in the U.S. District Court of Central California against CoreLogic, Inc. and LSI Appraisal, their parent companies and various affiliates for alleged gross negligence and multiple contract violations in connection with improper appraisals delivered to WaMu in 2006 through 2008. Out of the thousands of appraisals provided by the two companies to WaMu during the period, the FDIC claimed... Read More

Latest Imf News

More Imf News

Featured Data

More Featured Data

Featured Reports

More Latest Reports

Featured Poll

As homeowner equity continues to build, more and more lenders are launching home equity lending products. Are you thinking of joining this market?

View Results