New issuance of single-family mortgage-backed securities by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fell sharply in the fourth quarter of 2015 despite a December rebound in monthly volume, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking. The two government-sponsored enterprises issued $179.01 billion of single-family MBS during the final three months of 2015, a 19.9 percent drop from the third quarter. It was the weakest level of new business for the GSEs since the second quarter of 2014. A faltering purchase-mortgage market was...[Includes three data tables]
Although the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently issued a “clarifying” letter on errors tied to the so-called TRID integrated disclosure rule, deep concerns remain among originators that fund non-agency product for sale into the secondary market. Moreover, according to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance over the past week, some nonbank lenders are seeing noticeable increases in origination costs because loans are taking longer to close and therefore remain on warehouse lines for an extended period of time. Because nonbanks fund almost all of their production using warehouse credit, the implication boils down...
Mortgage industry representatives are meeting this week with Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray in another attempt to squeeze out additional clarification to help lenders comply with the bureau’s integrated disclosure rule, which took effect Oct. 3, 2015. The ambiguity and confusion engendered by the rule continues to contribute to mortgage closing delays throughout the country, according to many top industry officials. Executives of the Independent Community Bankers of America were scheduled...
Quicken Loans is considering its next move – possibly a change of litigation venue – following last week’s ruling by a Michigan federal district court dismissing the lender’s lawsuit against the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Justice Department for failure to state a claim. The lawsuit, which challenged the DOJ’s use of the False Claim Act and HUD’s use of statistical sampling in post-endorsement loan reviews, was filed in April 2015, a week before the DOJ sued Quicken for allegedly filing false claims on FHA mortgages and other violations. Quicken’s lawsuit claimed...