After growing significantly via the acquisition of portfolios and subservicing, special servicer Walter Investment Management is looking to increase its servicing assets in different ways. Walter is close to establishing delinquency flow programs and will soon increase its agency originations. The company currently expects to close one delinquency flow program in the second quarter with an additional program to come in the second half of the year, Walter said this week ...
Two Harbors Investment started acquiring residential properties to offer for rent during the first quarter of 2012, with officials at the real estate investment trust anticipating strong profits from the venture. The final step in establishing an infrastructure for the program was a February agreement with Silver Bay Property Management. Silver Bay creates the opportunity to bring in institutional excellence to this sector, which heretofore has largely been ...
The FHA and the reverse mortgage industry are working on guidelines that would help lenders in the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program identify unsuitable borrowers. Financial assessment guidelines that are currently in development would limit the pool of HECM applicants to those who can afford to meet the programs financial obligations in a timely manner, said Jeffrey Lewis, chairman and chief executive officer of Generation Mortgage in Atlanta. HECM loans account for 90 percent of all reverse mortgages originated in the U.S. Loan volume had contracted in the wake of the financial crisis, down ...
Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans remain widely available, thanks to the independent lenders that rallied to plug the gaps as major players bolted from the reverse mortgage market, an industry executive told lawmakers this week. In testimony during a House subcommittee hearing on FHA regulation of the HECM market, Jeffrey Lewis, CEO of Generation Mortgage Co., said MetLifes departure from the market and closure of its traditional mortgage-origination business say nothing about the value of the HECM product to consumers. Lewis said MetLifes decision was a strategic one and had nothing to do with ... (1 chart)
The four major banks reclassified $6.0 billion in home-equity loans to nonperforming status this month due to guidance from federal regulators. While the holdings have been seen as an impediment to loss mitigation efforts, the banks said the accounting change was essentially cosmetic. Bank of America classified $4.36 billion in HELs as nonperforming as of the end of the first quarter of 2012, up from $2.45 billion at the end of 2011. The increase was due to ...
Facing a deadline set by the Dodd-Frank Act for the beginning of 2013, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is working on an ability-to-repay rule to define qualified mortgages. While industry participants have warned that few non-QMs will be originated, Raj Date, deputy director of the CFPB, said the regulator hopes to ensure that prudent loans will benefit from sufficient investor appetite and a competitive market. We want to avoid any inappropriate disincentive that would prevent lenders from making ...
DBRS this week said seven firms are approved to provide third-party due diligence on non-agency mortgage-backed securities rated by the company. The companies are Allonhill, American Mortgage Consultants, Clayton, Digital Risk, Opus, RMG and R.R. Donnelley. Meanwhile, CoreLogic announced last week that Standard & Poors has approved the company as a third-party due diligence provider for non-agency MBS ... [Includes four briefs]
Increases in mortgage insurance premiums and adjustments to loan programs will likely make FHA-insured mortgage loans more costly and difficult to obtain for future FHA borrowers, according to industry participants. Lenders estimate that about 40 percent of home purchases and even a larger share of first-time homebuyer purchases are insured by the FHA. They say the premium changes could have a detrimental impact on homebuyers in 2012. The FHA has increased its premiums in order to shore up its books in light of high delinquency and foreclosure rates and to strengthen its depleted capital reserves, which have ...
MetLife, Inc. has announced that it is leaving the reverse mortgage business as part of a broader business plan to exit the mortgage market and focus strategically on global insurance and employee benefits. Nationstar Mortgage will purchase MetLifes reverse mortgage servicing portfolio. MetLife Bank will no longer accept new reverse mortgage loan applications and registrations. MetLifes entire retail banking business, including mortgages, accounted for less than 2.0 percent of the companys 2011 operating earnings. Last year, the company decided to ...
Moodys Investors Service has come up with a new metric that evaluates how much cash a subprime mortgage servicer generates from loan modifications and liquidations versus how much it loses through loss mitigation and inaction on delinquent loans. A quick resolution may be the single most decisive factor in maximizing cash flow, whether its an effective loan modification or an outright foreclosure and liquidation. Its better to do it quickly, said Peter McNally, a vice president and senior analyst at Moodys who contributed to the development of the metric. A modification is good if you make the...