Policymakers interested in pushing national mortgage servicing standards are right to make sure that homeowners who were harmed by abusive industry practices are compensated. However, there is still a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the housing and housing finance markets, and any servicing standards that are developed must address that if the weights that hold the markets back are to be cut lose and private capital comes back in full force, a top industry…
AARP and two law firms recently filed a class action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco against Wells Fargo and Fannie Mae on behalf of reverse mortgage borrowers and their survivors in an attempt to keep Home Equity Conversion Mortgage foreclosures and evictions in the state at bay. …
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled against the conservative watch dog group, Judicial Watch, and in favor of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, determining that the FHFA is not required to release documentation revealing the extent to which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have contributed to political campaigns. …
In Simms Parris v. Countrywide Financial Corp., the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the lower court’s dismissal of a consumer claim against Countrywide, ruling that the homeowner, Simms Parris, had no direct cause of action under the Fair Credit Reporting Act because she did not first notify the credit reporting agency of her dispute with the lender. …
In Commonwealth Property Advocates, LLC v. Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.; CitiMortgage, Inc.; et al., the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court determination that MERS has the right to enforce deeds of trust regardless of whether the underlying debt has been sold and securitized. In this case, the original borrower had transferred her interest in the property to a third-party entity, Commonwealth Property Advocates, which litigated questioning MERS’ authority under the trust…
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the U.S. Treasury and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have issued a Request For Information, seeking the industry’s insight on new options for selling current and future single-family real estate owned properties held by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA. The RFI will delve into alternatives for maximizing value to taxpayers while boosting private investment in the housing market, including ways that will support rental and affordable…
Massachusetts. State Attorney General Martha Coakley has secured a $124.8 million settlement with Sand Canyon – which had done business as Option One in a previous life – that closes the book on claims of unfair and discriminatory lending practices by the former subprime lender. Under the terms of the settlement, the company must instruct its servicer, American Home Mortgage Servicing, to make principal reduction modifications for delinquent Option One borrowers. American Home acquired…
Department of Housing and Urban Development Loan limit guidance. The Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to release guidance by the end of August that will detail which loans are eligible for the higher conforming loan limits, along with additional requirements for using the higher loan limits, according to Inside FHA Lending, an affiliated publication. …
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has launched a new web-based mapping tool displaying the location of all foreclosed properties being held by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA, which is almost half of all real estate-owned or REO properties in the U.S. HUD said its REO Portal is intended to help local communities, homebuyers and responsible investors to acquire these properties and accelerate efforts to stabilize local housing markets. …
The rush to Treasuries that resulted from investor fears about the U.S. and European economies has pushed interest rates closer to the level where a major mortgage refinance wave could start to take shape, but analysts say it’s a good time to load up on agency MBS. “The Fed’s commitment to keep interest rates low until at least mid 2013 strongly improves demand technicals for MBS, in our view,” said analysts at Credit Suisse in a report issued after the Federal Open Market Committee vowed to keep rates at historically low levels for at least two more years. “This provides ...
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