Cart

Inside Mortgage Finance

October 22, 2015

View Archived Issues

State of the Mortgage Industry: Regulation Key, But Lenders Are Ready to Turn the Page

Mortgage bankers have been obsessed with regulation for the past five years, with good reason. Yet there was a sense at this week’s annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association that the industry is ready to move on. The natural turning point is that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has wrapped up the major pieces of its rulemaking mandates from the Dodd-Frank Act. The new final rule on Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reporting was released late last week, and the widely-dreaded integrated-disclosure requirements went into effect early this month. The so-called TRID still doesn’t sit... Read More

Nonbanks Continue to Gain in Agency Servicing, Except Ocwen; Bank Pullback Moderates

Commercial banks – the megabanks in particular – appear to be moderating their retreat from servicing loans pooled into Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae securities. But most of the largest gains in the third quarter came from nonbanks with one glaring decline: Ocwen Financial. According to loan-level data compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance, Ocwen serviced $64.22 billion of agency collateral at Sept. 30, a blood curdling 33.7 percent sequential drop and a sign that al-though the publicly traded nonbank plans to remain a servicer of conventional loans, it continues to sell mortgage servicing rights and deleverage its balance sheet. The megabanks – Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and U.S. Bank – ranked...[Includes two data tables] Read More

Servicing Offerings Remain Brisk; Carrington Has Become a Buyer, Ocwen Loses a Contract

Several $1 billion-plus mortgage servicing packages have reached the auction market the past few weeks as sellers try to complete deals before yearend. But one potential obstacle could gum up the works: a continuing decline in interest rates. With the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury hovering just above the 2.0 percent mark, mortgage rates are now at their lowest levels since the spring. And as any servicing investor knows: A declining interest rate environment is never a good thing to sell into. In early September, U.S. Trading LLC, Cherry Hill, NJ, hit... Read More

HUD Caves to Servicers, Withdraws Proposal On Filing Deadlines for FHA Insurance Claims

The Department of Housing and Urban Development late last week withdrew a controversial proposed rule that aimed to speed the process by which residential servicers file FHA insurance claims. A number of industry participants were critical of the proposed claims-filing deadline, warning that it would prompt significant problems. Among other provisions, the proposal issued in July would have established a deadline for insurance claims to be filed with the FHA. “This new deadline will ensure FHA can effectively manage and process timely claims,” HUD said at the time. Originally, the agency proposed... Read More

Housing Finance Reform Be Damned: GSEs Reveal New Programs and Partnerships at MBA Annual

In a spurt of new activity unveiled at the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association this week, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are ramping up the competition between each other, announcing new programs and partnerships and acting as though housing reform is not on the radar anytime soon. And it may not be. While rumors have swirled recently, hinting that the government-sponsored enterprises may be released from conservatorship, White House and Treasury officials confirmed this week that there are no such plans to recapitalize and release the two from government stewardship. “None of us should be misled... Read More

The CFPB’s Final Rule Ups the Ante on Data Collection and Reporting Significantly

While lenders scramble to adapt to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s integrated disclosure rule, the agency has released its long-awaited final rule under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, ratcheting up the industry’s data-reporting requirements – and the potential for more fair lending enforcement activity. Among the most significant changes within the 800-page regulation, the final rule modifies which institutions are subject to Regulation C and adopts a uniform loan volume threshold for depository and non-depository institutions. It excludes from institutional coverage firms that did not originate at least 25 closed-end mortgage loans in each of the two preceding calendar years or at least 100 open-end lines of credit in such a time period. The new rule also changes... Read More

Cybersecurity a Growing Concern and a Risk For Which There is No Permanent Cure

Mortgage lenders face a growing risk from cyberattacks from an increasingly sophisticated hacker universe, as well as more regulatory scrutiny over the issue, according to experts at this week’s annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association. “There is an arms bazaar of malware for sale in the market, with about 300 new programs – that we know about – being released every day,” said Roger Cressey, a partner at Liberty Group Ventures. The market has been turned into a business, with malware sellers forging service level agreements with their customers through which the buyer doesn’t have to pay if the product doesn’t result in a successful intrusion, he said. Because many hackers are more interested in stealing the target’s client information than crashing its system, the mortgage industry – which sits on mountains of personally identifiable information – is... Read More

Conventional Conforming Tops in 2014 HMDA

Conventional conforming loans accounted for 60.3 percent of the 2014 mortgage market, according to an Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of 2014 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. Wells Fargo was the top HMDA lender last year with a 7.9 percent share of the market. HMDA originations include only retail and table-funded broker production and do not include correspondent acquisitions. Wells was the top conventional-conforming lender and the biggest jumbo producer. Quicken Loans was...[Includes one data table] 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