Two differing notions have emerged during a recent hearing in the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance regarding the rapidly changing relationship between private mortgage insurance and the FHA single-family mortgage insurance program. One view is that FHA’s existing policies either ignore or violate basic regulatory principles and continue to crowd out private capital. Compared to state-regulated private MIs, the FHA has far less stringent standards and enforcement from a regulatory perspective has been disappointing. Proponents of this view say that ...

A federal employee union and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have agreed to implement a seven-day employee furlough because of a severe mandatory reduction in HUD’s budget in FY 2013. The seven furlough days, which also will affect FHA operations, will apply to HUD’s entire 9,100-person work force and will be spread out to one for each pay period beginning May 24. HUD initially proposed a 13-day furlough plan, which was to start May 10, but agreed to reduce it to seven days and to move the start date to May 24. Under an agreement between HUD and the American Federation of Government Employees Council 222, furlough days will occur on ...

Legislation that would provide the FHA with tools to strengthen its finances and ensure its long-term solvency has been reintroduced in the House of Representatives. It is uncertain whether Republican leaders, given their concerns, would be willing to take up the Democrat-sponsored bill. The bill, the FHA Emergency Fiscal Solvency Act, would give the FHA more flexibility to take action against lenders that show excessive early default and claims rates. It would also authorize the FHA to require a mortgagee to indemnify the agency for improperly written loans. The bill’s co-sponsors, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, and Rep. Michael Capuano, D-MA, hope for ...

The mortgage banking industry is backing a proposal by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to reduce the loan-to-value ratio on FHA-insured mortgage loans over $625,500 from 96.5 percent to 95 percent. In effect, the proposal would raise the minimum downpayment on FHA-insured jumbo loans from 3.5 percent to 5 percent. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the proposal would help return FHA to its historical core mission of providing first-time, minority and low- and moderate-income homebuyers access to affordable mortgage credit. The proposal is also designed to encourage the return of ...

Streamline refinancing helped boost FHA origination volume as lenders reported substantial increases on monthly and year-over-year bases, according to Inside FHA Lending’s latest analysis of FHA data. Despite increases in mortgage insurance premium and other policy changes aimed at reducing FHA market share and strengthening the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, FHA endorsements were up 18.7 percent in January 2013 from December 2012, and a hefty 38.7 percent from January last year. However, FHA refis accounted for 54.3 percent of total production while purchase mortgages made up ... [1 chart]

Ginnie Mae servicing volume was up modest 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 and 9.1 percent higher from the previous year, with some eye-popping increases reported by several servicers. The top servicers of Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities reported $1.31 trillion in government-backed mortgage debt outstanding in the fourth quarter, up from $1.29 trillion from the previous quarter. Wells Fargo led the pack with $407.2 billion after posting gains on a quarterly and year-over-year basis while second-place Bank of America recorded a total of ... [1 chart]

Some underwriters in the private mortgage insurance space are rolling out new technology in their efforts to reacquire market share lost to the FHA even as market tidal forces continue to shift in favor of private MIs. Radian Guaranty, a subsidiary of Radian Group, has introduced its MI rate finder application, Radian Rates, for Android smart phone devices on Google Play. Designed as a mobile version of the company’s existing online rate finder, Radian Rates checks eligibility, compares options and automatically calculates the MI rate depending on the ...

Last summer, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued an advisory concerning warehouse lines of credit that was all but ignored by most players in the market. That is, until now. In a research note, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods said the “new” OCC rules could force Texas Capi-tal Bank to increase the risk weighting of its warehouse lines to 100 percent, from its current designa-tion of 37 percent.

Mortgage Master, a Walpole, MA-based super-regional lender and one of the largest privately held mortgage companies in the United States, is actively expanding into some key markets in the country, while out-racing behemoth competitor Wells Fargo to the top of the ranking of mortgage lenders in its home state. And the keys to success nationally and locally are the same: strong recruitment of top-notch originators and consistent exceptional service. “I think we’re out-running them [Wells Fargo]. They have ...

What does it take for a community bank to be considered for an award for innovation? It would seem a lot in the case of Seattle-based HomeStreet Bank. Perhaps, it may also be due to the fact that HomeStreet Bank has gone from “troubled institution” to “well-capitalized institution” in four years. In fact, in March last year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions terminated a 2009 cease-and-desist order for the bank and ...