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Inside Mortgage Finance

September 1, 2011

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Second-Quarter Slump Hits Retail Production Hard, BofA Exit Puts Wholesale Market Up for Grabs

The sharp drop in mortgage origination activity during the second quarter had a bigger impact on retail loan production, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. But a much bigger change lies ahead as Bank of America this week announced plans to get out of the wholesale correspondent market. The company was the second largest correspondent lender in the industry during the first half of 2011, acquiring $49.23 billion in production. That represented a significant 8.3 percent of total home mortgage origination over the first six months of the year and nearly a quarter of industry-wide production in the correspondent channel. In a statement, BofA said...[Includes six data charts] Read More

Rumors of Government Refi Plan Resurface But Lesser Options, Perhaps Expanded HARP, Are More Likely

President Barack Obama and his advisors are scrambling to come up with ways to push the halting U.S. economic recovery forward, including the possibility of a major government mortgage refinance plan to help bolster the housing market. In a recent report, Deutsche Bank analysts said the administration has three options: remove or reduce the loan-level price adjustments that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now charge... Read More

Private Mortgage Insurance in Turmoil, PMI No Longer Writing New Business

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last week both “de-listed” PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. as an eligible private MI, a further blow to a private MI business that has been driven to the brink by the housing market collapse. Republic Mortgage Insurance Corp. was forced to stop writing new business this week as North Carolina regulators declined to extend a waiver of risk-capital ratios under which it had remained in the market. Together, PMI and RMIC accounted... Read More

More Metro Areas May be Impacted by Loan Limit Reduction than Previously Thought, NAR Analyst Finds

Only about 18 of the 247 “high cost” metropolitan markets will avoid seeing their FHA loan limits lowered at the end of this month, when the emergency loan-limit adjustments for the FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are set to expire, according to a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. All 24 metro markets that now have loan limits of $729,750 (or higher in Hawaii) will see their limits dropped to at least $625,500, and some of these areas in California will see... Read More

Inherently Complex Nature of Foreclosure Settlement Talks Continues to Bog Down Government Officials

Law enforcement and regulatory officials may be undermining their odds of reaching a foreclosure-practices settlement with the mortgage industry because they’re grasping for too much, too soon, letting the perfect become the enemy of the good, according to some political and legal observers. Attorneys general in all 50 states and the Department of Justice and other federal agencies continue to investigate alleged irregularities in the foreclosure practices of top servicers, including Bank of America, which is... Read More

Mortgage Delinquencies Up in 2nd Quarter, But Most Severe Default Rates Improved

After declining steadily since the end of 2009, overall mortgage delinquency rates spiked higher during the second quarter of 2011, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance Large Servicer Delinquency Index. The index, which covers all loans in default status plus foreclosure and is not seasonally adjusted, rose from 10.31 percent at the end of March to 10.58 percent at the midway point in the year. All of the increase came in the… Read More

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