The Federal Housing Finance Agency is continuing to work on new standards that will dictate not only how much capital nonbank servicers must retain, but how much in liquidity reserves they will need, according to industry analysts and advisors familiar with the topic. Moreover, these officials believe that some type of unveiling of those standards – originally planned for December – has been pushed into the first quarter of 2015. “One problem [the] FHFA is facing is...
The MBA’s legal counsel tried to begin by focusing on the dividing line between interpretative rules and legislative rules, but soon found herself having to defend the trade group’s support for the DOL’s original 2006 position.
Mortgage lenders have been chasing purchase-mortgage business since the refinance market started to subside early in 2013, but the refi sector showed considerable strength during the third quarter of this year, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. Refinance originations increased by 21.4 percent from the second quarter to the third, with an estimated $136 billion in production volume. At the same time, purchase-mortgage originations rose by just 5.6 percent, to an estimated $209 billion. Refi lending is...[Includes five data charts]
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should each implement a board-approved risk-management framework that specifically includes risk-based oversight of single-family seller/servicers, according to an advisory bulletin issued this week by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The new “supervisory expectation” covers numerous seller/servicer oversight activities that the government-sponsored enterprises have done for years, albeit pulling them all together under a comprehensive framework. It implements a recommendation made by the FHFA inspector general in July, which expressed concern that the regulator is not paying enough attention to the financial condition of certain nonbank servicers that make up a growing share of Fannie/Freddie business. “FHFA expects...
Warehouse lenders increased the dollar volume of their commitments to an estimated $31 billion in the third quarter, a 3.3 percent sequential improvement, according to survey figures compiled byInside Mortgage Finance. Compared to the same quarter a year ago, commitments fell by 11.4 percent. But a commitment to lend is just that. Many nonbank borrowers rack up commitments, but the real test of the health of warehouse lending is in usage rates. At First Tennessee Bank, for example, its commitments were...[Includes one data chart]