The New York AG has secured a temporary restraining order barring the loan mod companies from collecting advance fees. The state's top cop also froze their bank accounts.
Originations of jumbo mortgages increased significantly in the second quarter of 2014 compared with the previous quarter, according to a new ranking and analysis by affiliated publication Inside Mortgage Finance. An estimated $59.0 billion in non-agency jumbos were originated in the second quarter, up 34.1 percent from the previous quarter and reversing two consecutive quarters of declining originations for the jumbo sector. Halfway through the year, jumbo production ... [Includes one data chart]
A number of real estate investment trusts are increasing their presence in the jumbo mortgage-backed security market with conduit programs as well as purchases of subordinate tranches from new MBS. Two Harbors Investment said its jumbo conduit had a pipeline with an unpaid principal balance of $650 million at the end of the second quarter of 2014, more than four times the REIT’s pipeline at March 31. Two Harbors recently issued a $267.67 million jumbo MBS, the first from the REIT this year ...
Lowering the government-sponsored enterprises’ loan limits is one of the main goals for firms involved in the non-agency market but the effort lacks broad support in the mortgage industry, let alone in Congress. Among those submitting comments to the Treasury Department this month regarding how to increase non-agency activity, the American Bankers Association was one of the biggest supporters of decreased loan limits for the GSEs. The conforming loan limit is at $417,000 and ...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released an updated bulletin regarding servicing transfers due to continued concerns about how troubled borrowers fare when servicing moves from one firm to another. “In particular, CFPB examiners will carefully scrutinize transfers of loans with pending loss mitigation applications or approved trial and permanent modification plans,” the regulator said. “Examples of good practices by servicers include flagging those loans and ...
Bank of America last week agreed to a record settlement with the Department of Justice and others, largely involving non-agency mortgage-backed securities issued from 2003 through 2008. Officials at the DOJ said the settlement focused on disclosures provided by BofA and its affiliates, including Countrywide Financial, First Franklin and Merrill Lynch, to investors in the bonds. “It’s kind of like going to your neighborhood grocery store to buy milk advertised as fresh, only to discover that ...
Chuck Klein, managing partner of Mortgage Banking Solutions, is engaged in roughly 12 transactions. “I think at least six of those will close,” he said.
Goldman Sachs agreed to a settlement with the Federal Housing Finance Agency last week to resolve claims about non-agency mortgage-backed securities purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the financial crisis. The FHFA said the settlement will cost Goldman $1.20 billion and the firm will buyback non-agency MBS from the government-sponsored enterprises. The original balance of the securities owned by Fannie and Freddie that Goldman will buyback is ... [Includes five briefs]
Roughly $1 billion in damages will flow through to the FHA and Ginnie Mae from Bank of America’s record $16.65 billion global mortgage-backed securities settlement with the Department of Justice. Although most of the DOJ’s case centered around faulty private-label MBS that BofA and its forbears (namely Countrywide and Merrill Lynch) underwrote during the housing boom, a small piece of the settlement is tied to servicing chores that the bank did for Ginnie Mae. And apparently, BofA didn’t do a very good job of servicing the underlying product. The bank took over as the subservicer on roughly $26.2 billion in mortgage servicing rights that once belonged to Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, a large nonbank based in Ocala, FL. When TBW went bust in the second half of 2009, BofA was given the subservicing contract. “BofA serviced the loans for us,” said Ginnie Mae president Ted Tozer. “And they did a ...
The FHA has issued two final rules enhancing consumer protections – one prohibiting lenders from charging additional interest on FHA-insured mortgages that are paid in full and another ensuring that borrowers of adjustable-rate mortgages receive earlier notice of rate changes. Both rules were published in the Aug. 26 Federal Register. The first rule eliminates the practice of charging the borrower a full-month’s interest even if the mortgage is prepaid in full before the end of the month. It adopted the proposed rule, which was issued for comment on March 13, 2014, without change. Effective Jan. 21, 2015, charging borrowers post-settlement interest, which is broadly defined by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a “prepayment penalty,” will be prohibited for all FHA single-family mortgage products and programs. In the rule’s preamble, HUD said it expects lenders to ...