When Countrywide Financial Corp. chairman and CEO Angelo Mozilo gave then company president Stanford Kurland the heave-ho in the fall of 2006, little did Kurland know at the time that it would be the best thing to ever happen to him professionally. Six years later, Kurland sits atop a growing mortgage empire fueled by the activities of PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, a publicly traded real estate investment trust with a market capitalization rate just north of $1.5 billion. To boot ...

Officials at Ocwen Financial were highly critical of the accounting methods used by other servicers that have acquired significant holdings of mortgage servicing rights recently. Ocwen might also soon have more cash than necessary for its planned acquisition opportunities, with officials considering initiating a stock buyback. William Erbey, Ocwen’s chairman, said his company is considerably less leveraged than other servicers. He noted that Ocwen carries most of its MSRs at market value rather than ...

Sixty-five percent of real estate agents would be more willing to recommend a lender if they were provided a mobile “app” to track the status of scheduled mortgage closings, according to a new survey by Campbell Surveys and Inside Mortgage Finance Publications. “Most lenders today are not keeping us advised of the status of the loan and, more frustrating, they are requiring additional documents piecemeal,” according to one real estate agent that responded to the survey. “Instead of a ...

Overall FHA loan production dropped a tad during the first quarter of 2013 even as refinancing volume remained elevated, according to an Inside FHA Lending analysis of agency data. FHA lenders produced a total of $63.7 billion in new FHA-insured loans during the quarter, down 0.6 percent from the previous quarter but up 27.4 percent from the same period last year. FHA streamline refinancing rose 8.4 percent to $31.0 billion in the first quarter from the prior period. That was also up a whopping 97.8 percent from the same period last year. In a new report to Congress, the ... [2 charts]

Changes at Fannie Mae in 2010 would have forced Third Federal Savings and Loan to adjust its underwriting standards if the company was to continue selling mortgages to the government-sponsored enterprise. Instead, TFSL decided to differentiate itself from other lenders and launched a non-agency ARM product. To manage interest-rate risk while serving borrowers that might have trouble qualifying for an agency loan, TFSL shifted from predominantly selling fixed-rate mortgages to Fannie before July 2010 to ...

The FHA paid out more in claims than it had collected in premiums and note and property sales as of Sept. 30, 2012, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s quarterly report to Congress on the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. FHA disbursed $19.5 billion at the end of the third quarter last year mostly to pay claims and booked $16.7 billion in collections, resulting in an outflow of $2.8 billion, the report stated. Cash flows from operations over the last year covered 80 percent of default losses, the report noted. Premiums collected over four quarters ending Sept. 30, 2012, totaled ...

Wells Fargo will reportedly appeal a federal judge’s decision that a $25 billion agreement Wells and four other banks made with federal agencies and 49 state attorneys general last year to settle allegations of servicing malpractices does not make the banks immune to future claims under the False Claims Act. The Feb. 12 decision by Judge Rosemary Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said that the landmark settlement she had approved in April 2012 does not release the from future False Claims Act claims the government may bring. Dating back to the U.S. Civil War, the FCA provides for treble damages for fraud that results in ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development this week issued more detailed guidance to changes in the FHA Lender Insurance Program based on a final rule published in the Federal Register in January 2012. Under the LI program, high-performing direct endorsement lenders have the authority to conduct pre-endorsement reviews and endorse loans. Mortgagee Letter 2013-12 supersedes guidance HUD issued last month and provides additional details on initial and continuing eligibility for Lender Insurance. It also talks about HUD monitoring of program participants as well indemnification procedures, which were discussed in ...

Wall Street has unveiled policy proposals calling for premium and guaranty fee adjustments and reduced loan limits for FHA and the government-sponsored enterprises to jump start the return of private capital to the U.S. housing market. The American Securitization Forum said the current level of government activity in the mortgage market is neither sustainable nor advisable. The government, through FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, directly or indirectly guarantees 90 to 95 percent of new mortgage originations in the country, the trade association said. While everyone agrees the government’s role in housing should be reduced over the long term, there is ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced plans to consolidate multifamily hubs nationwide and close a number of its smaller field offices. The plan would result in an estimated $61.9 million in annual costs savings for HUD after completion and affect approximately 900 of the department’s 9,300 employees. No employee will be laid off as a result of the restructuring, according to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. Donovan said the changes are part of a broader, long-term effort that will allow HUD to continue to deliver high-quality services by adapting modern best practices. The decision to ...