Redwood Trust plans to more than triple the dollar amount of non-agency jumbo mortgage-backed securities it issues this year compared with its issuance from 2012, according to comments this week from officials at the real estate investment trust. Redwood also plans to securitize conforming jumbos and even aggregate conforming loans to sell to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The REITs goal for 2013 is to issue about $7.0 billion in non-agency MBS. While potential competitors struggled to ...
The ability-to-repay rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will not have a negative impact on First Republic Banks originations of interest-only mortgages, according to James Herbert, chairman and CEO of the bank. Officials at Redwood Trust also said the rule is unlikely to impact its acquisition and securitization of IOs. If anything, First Republics Herbert said the new rule from the CFPB, which included harsher treatment for IO originations beginning in 2014, could help increase ...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will closely monitor sales of servicing, particularly to nonbanks, and require new contingency plans from servicers, the agency announced last week. The new scrutiny was prompted by complaints from borrowers as nonbank special servicers have increased their purchases of servicing in recent years. The CFPB will, in appropriate cases, require servicers engaged in significant servicing transfers to prepare and submit written plans to the CFPB detailing how they will ...
The amount of subprime mortgages outstanding continues to fall, although performance leveled off in 2012 after significant declines in delinquencies beginning in 2010. Some $475.0 billion in subprime mortgages were outstanding at the end of 2012, according to estimates by Inside Nonconforming Markets, down 12.8 percent from the end of 2011. Only two major subprime servicers increased their subprime mortgage holdings in 2012 compared with the end of 2011: Ocwen Financial and ... [Includes one data chart]
The $25 billion national servicing settlement has prompted an increase in principal reduction loan modifications on non-agency mortgages, according to the Treasury Department. However, most of the servicers participating in the settlement have not yet met their principal reduction obligations. Last week, the Treasury said servicers have increased their use of principal reduction outside of the Home Affordable Modification Programs Principal Reduction Alternative due to the ... [Includes one data chart]
FCI Lender Services ended December with $2.3 billion of private money loans in its servicing portfolio, a 27 percent gain from the same period a year earlier. The nations largest private money servicer said it is seeing an increase in contracts and growth in soft money loans backed by residential real estate. Gordon Albrecht, chief strategy officer at FCI, said soft money loans currently account for 50 percent of the firms business, which is based in Anaheim, CA. Thats a record for us, ...
The Treasury Department approved $10.0 million in federal funds this month for a limited pilot of a program to allow non-agency borrowers with negative equity to refinance. The program in Oregons Multnomah County includes characteristics of a proposal from Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-OR, who said the pilot could create a national model. The Oregon Housing and Community Services Department will use money from the Hardest Hit Fund to help non-agency mortgages with loan balances up to $250,000 and ... [Includes one brief]
House Republicans may be able to pass tough FHA reform and solvency legislation out of committee but they may not have enough votes on the House floor or in the Senate to sustain such a bill, according to industry sources. Even after two successive hearings in the House Financial Services Committee this month, there has been no clear indication from Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, as to which proposals might go into a legislative package of FHA reforms. Hensarling is said to be operating with a very strong hand, and if it were up to him entirely, he would draft legislation that would contain some ...
Wells Fargo suffered a big legal setback after a federal judge denied its request to enforce a consent judgment under last years landmark $25 billion servicing settlement to prevent a New York lawsuit from proceeding. Judge Rosemary Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected Wells Fargos argument that the new government suit filed in Manhattan district court was improper because it violated the consent judgment against Wells Fargo and flies in the face of the judgments liability release provision. Wells Fargo argued that the allegations in a civil mortgage fraud suit filed by ...