Younger, active-service soldiers are outpacing non-military homebuyers under the age of 35 in home purchase – and they are buying larger, more expensive homes with VA loans, according to a new National Association of Realtors survey. The NAR survey, 2016 Veterans & Active Military Home Buyers and Sellers Profile, found quite a few contrasts between active-service military homebuyers and those who have never served. Of all homebuyers, 18 percent were veterans and 3 percent were in active military service. Of all home sellers, 21 percent were vets and 1 percent were active-military. According to the survey, the typical active-service homebuyer was a lot younger (median age of 34 years old) than non-military buyers (40 years old). The active-military homebuyer was more likely to be married and have several children living in the household. Consequently, they prefer larger single-family homes. Interestingly, the ...

Nearly a month after abruptly withdrawing a final rule for its single-family guaranteed loan program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service has republished a final rule on lender indemnification, refinancing and qualified mortgage requirements. The changes to the Section 502 Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan program intend to broaden borrower access to USDA-backed loans and improve the agency’s risk management. Published in the May 3 Federal Register, the final rule expands RHS’ lender indemnification authority for loss claims in cases of fraud or misrepresentation or noncompliance with USDA loan origination. This action continues the agency’s efforts to broaden and improve its ability to manage risk related to its guaranteed home mortgage lending. In addition, the USDA is amending its refinancing provisions to require that the new interest rate not exceed the ...

The California Reinvestment Coalition last week called upon the Department of Housing and Urban Development to impose a moratorium to prevent CIT Group and its servicing subsidiary, Financial Freedom, from initiating any more reverse mortgage foreclosures. The CRC’s request is based in part on data it obtained from HUD indicating an unusually high foreclosure rate for Financial Freedom/CIT Group.According to the data, Financial Freedom’s 39 percent share of reverse mortgage foreclosures since April 2009 is more than two times greater than the company’s estimated market share. The CRC began looking into Financial Freedom’s foreclosure history after receiving complaints from a number of widowed homeowners and other heirs about Freedom’s foreclosure practices, said Kevin Stein, CRC associate director. Stein said the CRC filed a data request under the ...

The Financial Accounting Standards Board has proposed technical corrections and changes to its codified accounting handbook for private companies, including revisions to guidance relating to FHA and VA loans as well as transfers and servicing of financial assets. The proposed updates respond to suggestions by stakeholders and affect a wide variety of topics in the Accounting Standards Codification, which was established in September 2009 as a comprehensive source of authoritative generally accepted accounting principles used by the private sector. Among other things, a proposed amendment to Subtopic 860-20, Transfers and Servicing – Sales of Financial Assets would add...

Having agreed to pay billions of dollars in damages for underwriting allegedly faulty FHA mortgages, the nation’s megabanks could be pondering a better idea: Creating a portfolio product that accomplishes the same task as a low-downpayment, government-backed loan. According to industry officials who claim to have knowledge of the situation, Wells Fargo and at least one other top-five ranked lender are working on such a concept, but it remains to be seen whether they will ever get there, and if they do, whether such a creation can amass any type of volume. When asked whether Wells was working on an FHA-like portfolio loan, a spokesman did not dismiss...

The Senate Appropriations Committee last week approved funding for several housing provisions in the government’s Transportation and Housing and Urban Development fiscal year 2017 budget proposal, including FHA technological improvements, while the full Senate passed an amendment to include energy costs in FHA underwriting and appraisals. Approved by a unanimous vote of 30 to 0, the T-HUD budget bill, among other things, would provide federal funding for FHA technological upgrades rather than charge lenders an administrative fee as HUD had proposed. The committee appropriated $13 million in specific funds to improve FHA’s information technology. The proposed per-loan fee charged to lenders was projected...

Ginnie Mae is shutting down its long-running Targeted Lending Initiative (TLI) because it has not made much of an impact on lending to underserved urban and rural areas in recent years. Launched in 1997, the TLI was designed to encourage lenders to finance housing in underserved areas through a reduced guaranty fee. In 2005, the program played a major role in offering relief and financial assistance to homeowners in areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. Under the TLI, Ginnie Mae’s guaranty fee is reduced...

The Ginnie Mae servicing market continued to grow during the first three months of 2016, with most of the impetus coming from the VA home loan guaranty program. A new Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of mortgage-backed securities data reveals that the amount of Ginnie servicing outstanding swelled to $1.544 trillion as of the end of March, a 1.65 percent gain from the previous quarter. Because issuer-servicers regularly repurchase seriously delinquent loans out of Ginnie MBS pools, the actual volume of government-insured loans outstanding was somewhat higher. The VA program saw the most growth, increasing by 3.25 percent in just three months, while FHA servicing in Ginnie MBS rose only 0.96 percent from December 2015. Servicing of rural housing loans guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture was up 1.34 percent, while the FHA insurance program for Native Americans ... {4 charts]

FHA’s Streamline Refinance program went through an erratic pace in 2015 as business exploded in the second quarter and declined over the second half of the year. FHA lenders closed 2015 with $67.5 billion in total streamline refis, a 252.4 percent improvement over volume in 2014. Production fell 30.0 percent in the fourth quarter from the prior quarter. The second-quarter spike – which caused streamline refi volume to jump from $12.1 billion in the first quarter to $25.0 billion in the second quarter – was fueled apparently by FHA’s reduction of the annual mortgage insurance premium. In January 2015, the FHA cut its MIPs on 30-year loans, making it less expensive to carry an FHA home. Under the revised MIP schedule, a 30-year FHA streamline refi with a loan-to-value ratio over 95 percent is charged an annual MIP of 0.85 percent. For a 30-year loan under 95 percent LTV, the annual MIP is ... [ 1 chart ]

More large lenders may pull back from FHA lending in the wake of this month’s massive settlements between two major FHA lenders and the Department of Justice to resolve alleged violations of FHA lending guidelines and the Federal Claims Act, warned a Baker Donelson attorney in a recent analysis. As DOJ increases its use of the FCA, “large lenders will continue to step away from FHA originations,” said Craig Nazarro, of counsel at Baker Donelson in Atlanta and author of the analysis. Nazarro also warned nonbank FHA originators of the risk they are taking on by continuing to originate FHA loans and growing their government-backed loan portfolio as the larger banks exit or limit their participation in the FHA market. “Many large lenders have faced or are currently facing these [enforcement] actions, and from the [DOJ’s] recent statements, it does not appear that they are slowing down ...