The CFPB has promulgated its loan originator compensation final rule, perhaps most notable for what it didn't include. Industry groups had urged the bureau to drop from the final rule its proposed "zero-zero alternative that would have required lenders to offer a loan option with no discount points or origination fees any time they offered a mortgage with such payment features. Industry representatives said...

Although the CFPB is done – for now – with its regulations governing what servicers can do regarding their residential mortgage customers, there’s still one area they intend to explore: servicing transfers. At a regulatory field hearing in Baltimore earlier this month, agency officials said they will look into the issue. How far it will go is another matter. “They’re definitely working...

The CFPB has issued its voluminous new national mortgage servicing final rules, including a host of required loss mitigation rules and processes and bringing a substantial amount of uniformity to a sector much maligned because of its controversial “robo-signing” practices. Under the rule, servicers will have to follow specified loss mitigation procedures for a mortgage loan secured by a borrower’s principal residence. If a borrower applies for a loss mitigation option, the servicer is generally required to acknowledge, within five days and in writing, that it has received the application and inform the borrower whether the application is complete. If the application is...

The CFPB decided to exempt small entities that service fewer than 5,000 loans and service only mortgages that they or an affiliate originated or own from a number of the requirements of its new mortgage servicing final rule. For instance, the bureau exempted small servicers from having to create and maintain new general servicing policies and procedures, and from having to issue monthly statements that would include more information than most community banks currently provide. The new rule also permits...

The CFPB has responded to a variety of mortgage appraisal issues on two different fronts, publishing a final rule all its own in conjunction with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and participating in an interagency rulemaking in the context of the Truth in Lending Act. On the ECOA front, the bureau issued a final rule that requires mortgage lenders to provide applicants with free copies of all appraisals and other home-value estimates, although a lender generally may still charge the consumer a reasonable fee for the cost of conducting the appraisal or other estimate. In essence, then, a lender can charge...

Merrill Lynch is in the market actively buying jumbo mortgages and is also looking for an executive to manage its correspondent purchases, secondary market officials told Inside Mortgage Finance.

New Penn Financial, which is barely six years old, hopes to end 2012 with $5 billion in originations – almost double of what it funded a year ago.

Carrington Holding Co., which has a growing presence in residential finance, has hired Wall Street veteran Christopher Whalen as Executive Vice President in charge of its investment banking operation.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw a noticeable decline in Home Affordable Refinance Program activity during the final months of 2012, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. At a time when overall refinance business rose 11.0 percent at the two government-sponsored enterprises, deliveries of HARP loans fell 6.9 percent. The biggest decline was in issuance of MBS specifically geared for underwater mortgages. A total of $62.28 billion of high loan-to-value ratio mortgages were securitized...[Includes two data charts]

The massive legal action initiated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency about a year and a half ago on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac against many of the nation’s biggest non-agency MBS issuers and underwriters for allegedly misrepresenting toxic MBS netted its first settlement this week with the prospect of more where that came from. In papers filed with the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, the FHFA “voluntarily dismisses with prejudice” its lawsuit against General Electric Co., ending the legal action in which the FHFA had claimed the firm had misled Freddie into purchasing some $549 million of toxic MBS. “This settlement resolves...