Reverse mortgage lenders, consumer groups and certain advocates for the elderly are urging Congress to enact legislation passed recently by the House of Representatives granting the FHA additional authority to govern its reverse mortgage program. Testifying before the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development, the groups said the most productive action Congress can take is to pass H.R. 2167 to allow HUD to make expeditious changes to the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program through mortgagee letters. The bill, which the House approved on June 12, would ...
Deep-freezing the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program’s full-draw, fixed-rate standard product apparently has not diminished borrowers’ appetite for reverse mortgages as indicated by a significant increase in HECM originations in the first quarter of 2013. FHA endorsements under the HECM program surged 36.2 percent during the first three months of 2013, with lenders reporting $3.84 billion at the end of the quarter, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of FHA data. Volume was also up a modest 5.3 percent from the same period a year ago. The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced the ... [1 chart]
HUD Explains ‘Good Neighbor Next Door’ Program. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued Mortgagee Letter 2013-20 to clarify certain things about the FHA’s Good Neighbor Next Door Sales program. The program allows eligible borrowers to purchase, at 50 percent off the list price, a HUD-acquired single-unit home located in an area that the department has targeted for revitalization. According to HUD, the mortgage insurance premium should be based on the first mortgage only. The agency also clarified the process for allowing interruptions to ...
During an Inside Mortgage Finance webinar on Thursday, participants from expressed frustration on the ability to get new jumbo MBS deals because of the recent rapid rise in rates.
It appears that Cerberus is going down the mortgage aisle one more time. Let's hope it doesn't end like GMAC. Meanwhile, jumbo MBS market seizes up, temporarily.
When interest rates rise rapidly – as they have the past two weeks – lenders suffer. But it appears the few dozen or so hard-money and subprime lenders operating quietly in the trenches are doing just fine and are even seeing an increase in loan requests. Mark Mozilo, a principal in CALCAP Advisors, told Inside Nonconforming Markets that his hard-money firm will fund 40 loans in the second quarter of 2013, its highest quarterly volume to date. The company is just a few years old. Mozilo added that ...
Lenders that originate home loans to hold in portfolio are concerned about the regulatory consequences of originating non-qualified mortgages. While some have asked for a blanket exemption from liability for non-QMs held in portfolio, Democrats in Congress appear unlikely to approve such changes. “Congress should amend the ability-to-repay statute to grant QM status to all mortgage loans held in portfolio by community banks,” Charles Vice, commissioner of the Kentucky Department of ...
Over the past two weeks, mortgage lenders have seen their application volumes and origination pipelines get whipsawed by rising interest rates. But it’s not the run-up in rates, per se, that set off alarm bells in the industry. It’s how fast rates climbed. As Inside Mortgage Finance went to press this week, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury was at roughly 2.60 percent. On a historical basis, that’s an attractive rate – and as many lenders have pointed out: consumers can still obtain a 30-year fixed-rate conventional loan at 4 percent, depending on the points paid. But a month ago, the 10-year Treasury was...
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