The House Financial Services Committee’s second highest ranking Democrat is again facing ethics charges stemming from actions she allegedly took to aid a minority bank connected to her husband to recover losses it suffered when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preferred stock plummeted after the GSEs were put into conservatorship.The House Ethics Committee announced two weeks ago it will restart its investigation of ethics charges against Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, with the hiring of Washington, DC, attorney Billy Martin as an outside counsel to the committee to “review, revise and assist the committee in completing the matter.”

The private mortgage insurance industry is trying to preserve its viability in the mortgage world that has thrashed its financial health, urging regulators to expand the definition of a qualified residential mortgage to include loans that are privately insured. According to an analysis done by Milliman, Inc., an actuarial and insurance consulting firm, on behalf of the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America, private MI is a controlling factor that mitigates the risk of default, particularly in ...

Four of the top five mortgage servicers continued to gradually pare down their portfolios during the second quarter of 2011, while Wells Fargo inched further toward the top of the industry, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. Absent any blockbuster mergers or servicing acquisitions over the past few years, the major trend in the servicing business has been the winding down of distressed subprime and Alt A portfolios. Bank of America, still the largest servicer in the industry, has seen its portfolio shrink steadily since ... [includes one data chart]

Community bankers are lobbying for an exemption from national mortgage servicing standards that are evolving from federal rule-makers and secondary-market investors, arguing that they could drive smaller companies out of the servicing business. Jack Hopkins, CEO of CorTrust Bank in Sioux Falls, SD, urged the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this week to exempt small banks from new guidelines being drafted by banking and consumer protection regulators. Representing the Independent Community Bankers of America, Hopkins said the increased attention on mortgage servicing is raising ...

A number of distressed mortgage insurance companies with special covenants with state regulators and the government-sponsored enterprises are in danger of losing their ability to write new insurance as continued losses prevent them from meeting financial eligibility requirements. With credit trends further weakening in the second quarter, certain mortgage insurers, including Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp. and PMI Mortgage Insurance Co., could slip below minimum re-serve and surplus requirements, observers say. Already on capital-requirement waivers, the MIs could be ordered to stop ...

While many commenters support the proposed exemption for the government-sponsored enterprises from new risk-retention rules in the short-term, opinions vary as to just how long Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should enjoy such an exemption and its long-term impact on private securitizations. Federal regulators earlier this year proposed a rule which would require issuers of mortgage-backed securities to hold a minimum 5 percent of the credit risk of the assets underlying their securities unless the deal is backed by “qualified residential mortgages.” The proposed rule would exempt ...

Faced with the daunting task of identifying $1.5 trillion in budget savings, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are likely to take a close look at sacred cows like the home mortgage interest tax deduction. The mortgage interest deduction is projected to cost the U.S. just shy of $100 billion this year, does little to incentivize buying homes and is in need of reform, according to experts on a panel sponsored by the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. “The mortgage interest reduction is one of the very, very biggest and certainly the most ...

Wells Fargo and Bank of America continued to pull ahead of the field, adding Ginnie Mae servicing to their portfolios faster than the overall market grew during the second quarter of 2011. A new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis found the two companies holding 54.9 percent of Ginnie servicing outstanding at the end of June. Third-place JPMorgan Chase trailed overall growth in the market, while CitiMortgage and PNC Bank actually [includes one data chart]

The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is making substantial progress on its initiative to meld the mortgage disclosure forms under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act into one, more simplified disclosure. Still, a number of questions are being raised in the process, not the least of which has to do with what kind of regulation will eventually accompany the forms. “The first issue is that these forms just don’t reflect the regulatory and statutory requirements in many ways,” said Steve Kaplan, a partner with law firm K&L Gates LLP in its Washington, DC, office during a webinar last week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance Publications. “So someone who is a practitioner and who’s been dealing with these issues for years will say, ‘What is this form? This is great and dandy but do I get a safe harbor? Do I still violate the statute by providing this form?’” ...

The Federal Trade Commission issued a final rule to strengthen consumer protections by banning deceptive claims about consumer mortgages in advertising or other types of commercial communications. The new rule lists 19 examples of prohibited deceptive claims, including misrepresentations about the existence, nature, or amount of fees or costs to the consumer associated with the mortgage; the terms, amounts, payments, or other requirements relating to taxes or insurance associated with the mortgage; and the variability of interest, payments, or other terms of the mortgage. ...