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Inside Mortgage Finance

July 30, 2015

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Top Banks Continue Backpedaling From Mortgage Servicing in 2Q15, Nonbanks Mostly Fill the Void

There are plenty of mortgage servicers that are building their portfolios in a market that is merely treading water, but many of the biggest players in the business continued to ease back from the business during the second quarter of 2015. As a group, the top five servicers still accounted for an impressive 40.1 percent of the mortgage servicing market, but their combined portfolio – $3.943 trillion at the end of June – shrank by 3.3 percent during the second quarter. In March, the top five accounted for 41.4 percent of the market, and at the midway point in 2014 they held a combined 44.1 percent share. Four of the top five contracted...[Includes two data tables] Read More

Ginnie Mae Exerts New Controls on Servicing Changes as MSR Transfers Maintain Robust Pace

Ginnie Mae this week adopted a prior-approval policy for mortgage servicers that switch subservicers, bring subservicing in-house or move in-house servicing to subservicers. Noting an increasing number of companies that are making such changes in their servicing operations, the agency said some mandatory reporting requirements are getting lost in the shuffle. Effective immediately, any Ginnie issuer that wants to bring servicing in-house from a subservicer must get the agency’s prior written approval, according to All-Participants Memo 15-11. Existing rules require... Read More

Top Warehouse Lender Launches Correspondent Effort With the Goal of Growing Mortgage Servicing

Texas Capital BancShares recently unveiled a new correspondent acquisition program, but it’s not the loans per se that the bank is after – it’s the servicing rights attached to them. “They want to be in the servicing business,” said Chuck Klein, managing partner at Mortgage Banking Solutions. “The reason you enter the correspondent business is to get at the servicing rights. They’re in a great position to do a lot of business.” As for the details, the industry will... Read More

House Moves to Expand QM Safe Harbor While Senate Backs Away From GSE Tax for Highways

The House Financial Services Committee this week marked up legislation to block pay raises for the top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to extend qualified-mortgage status to loans originated for an institution’s retained portfolio. H.R. 1210, the Portfolio Lending and Mortgage Access Act, introduced by Rep. Andy Barr, R-KY, would extend qualified-mortgage protection from litigation and enforcement actions for mortgages originated and retained in portfolio by depository institutions. “This would incentivize private-sector risk retention,” said Barr. Rep. John Carney, D-DE, said... Read More

Wide Support for Linking Loan Limits to FHFA House Price Index, But Some Say Limits Should Not Go Up

Industry participants largely support a plan from the Federal Housing Finance Agency to tie adjustments of the conforming loan limits to the FHFA’s “expanded data” House Price Index. The extent to which conforming loan limits should be adjusted, however, remains a topic subject to debate. In May, the FHFA noted that home prices were close to recovering from the aftermath of the financial crisis, which could prompt an increase to the conforming loan limit. The $417,000 conforming loan limit took effect in 2006 and the FHFA was prevented from reducing the limit by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. The FHFA proposed... Read More

W.J. Bradley and RPM Mortgage Settle Suit Over Alleged Theft of Customer Information, But No Details Disclosed

W.J. Bradley Mortgage recently settled a civil suit filed against one of its competitors, RPM Mortgage, regarding the alleged theft of customer loan files by a top-ranked and recruited loan officer. In a statement, RPM said: “We are pleased that the litigation with W.J. Bradley has been settled. As always, the confidentiality of client information is of paramount importance to RPM.” W.J. Bradley, the original plaintiff in the matter, would not comment... Read More

More Needed from CFPB, HUD, Banking Regulators In Reviews of QM, QRM Regulations, GAO Says

The Government Accountability Office wants federal regulators responsible for reviewing the qualified mortgage and qualified residential mortgage rules to make sure they consider specific metrics and analytic methods. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the other federal agencies are slated to issue a review of the QM rule in January. The review of the QRM standard, part of a mortgage-securitization rule, won’t happen until 2019. So far, the regulatory agencies have identified... Read More

D.C. Circuit Reverses, Finds Texas Bank Has Standing To Challenge CFPB, Cordray’s Appointment as Chief

An appeals court in the D.C. Circuit has ruled that a Texas bank has standing to challenge the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent federal agency that regulates consumer financial products and services. A three-person judicial panel unanimously overturned a 2013 district court ruling, which concluded that the plaintiff did not have standing and that its claims were not ripe. In State National Bank of Big Spring, TX, et al. v. Lew, et al., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed and ruled that the bank has standing to challenge the constitutionality of the CFPB as well as the recess appointment of its director, Richard Cordray. The bank, joined by two nonprofit organizations, originally filed... Read More

State Regulators Plot Changes to NMLS Licensing Forms, Mortgage Call Report

State regulators have proposed changes to Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System & Registry licensing forms and call reports that would be a mixed bag for lenders, addressing some concerns while adding new reporting requirements. The proposal from the State Regulatory Registry, a subsidiary of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, comes two months after an initial request for comments regarding NMLS licensing forms and the mortgage call report (MCR). Comments on the proposal are due Aug. 20. State regulators stuck... Read More

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