A legislative proposal to charge veterans, servicemembers and military spouses more for a VA home loan is getting heat from lenders and the Department of Veterans Affairs itself. Testifying before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs last week, Paul Lawrence, VA undersecretary for benefits, warned that increasing VA loan fees would impose additional financial burdens on veterans who are trying to buy a home, making them more vulnerable to predatory lending. Fee-related proposals are included in H.R. 299, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2017. The House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 382-0 in June and it is currently under consideration in the Senate. H.R. 229 would expand disability benefits to Vietnam veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange while serving on U.S. ships offshore or on the ground in Thailand and the Korean demilitarized ...

The appraisal industry is opposed to a legislative proposal that would make changes to how appraisals are procured for the VA home loan program. The appraisal measure is one of the key provisions in H.R. 299, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act, which the House of Representatives passed by a vote of 382-0 in June. The bill is now pending in the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. The Blue Water Act would clarify presumptions relating to veterans’ exposure to herbicide, such as Agent Orange, during the Vietnam era and disability claims. The bill also proposes changes to the VA loan fee structure, including a proposed hike to the fees veterans, servicemembers and their spouses pay to obtain a VA-guaranteed home loan. The appraisal provision in H.R. 299 would allow VA appraisers to engage a third party to perform property inspections on their behalf. The provision addresses a problem with ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reported $6.96 billion in net income during the second quarter, down 3.2 percent from the previous quarter, and the duo have actively been working to trim their retained portfolios. Freddie has reduced its portfolio to $236.4 billion in the second quarter, well below the 2018 yearend purchase agreement cap of $250.0 billion. Its portfolio declined 1.9 percent in the second quarter but was down 16.7 percent from June 2017. Some 41.8 percent of ...

Despite a solid increase in mortgage originations and stable conditions for hedging, commercial banks and savings institutions reported generally lackluster earnings on their mortgage banking operations in the second quarter. A new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports from 24 banking organizations tallied $1.98 billion in mortgage banking income for the second quarter. That was down 12.3 percent from the first three months of ... [Includes one data chart]

With originations tepid of late, mortgage banking firms have been holding their payrolls steady, careful not to add overhead in what might prove to be a challenging market for the remainder of 2018. According to figures compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, mortgage banking firms employed 251,600 workers at the end of June, flat compared to the prior month. Companies that fall into the loan brokerage category employed 91,400 full timers at June 30, down 400 positions from May ...

The Mortgage Bankers Association recently asked the federal banking agencies to provide an update on a proposal to increase the amount of mortgage servicing assets that a bank may count to-wards Tier 1 capital. In a letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve, the MBA reiterated its support for the agencies’ proposal to raise a recommended 25 percent cap on the amount of mortgage servicing assets that may be ...

All five of the top players in the single-family mortgage servicing business reported slight de-clines in their portfolios during the second quarter, according to an exclusive Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and market analysis. As a group, the top five participants reported $3.661 trillion in mortgage servicing at the end of June, an 0.7 percent decline from the previous quarter. Although the Federal Reserve’s official tally of home mortgage debt outstanding ... [Includes two data charts]

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac generated a combined $6.96 billion in net income during the second quarter of 2018, down from $7.19 billion in the first three months of the year. While Fannie posted a solid 4.6 percent quarterly increase, hitting $4.46 billion in the most recent period, Freddie’s net income was down 14.5 percent from the first quarter. At the midway point in 2018, both government-sponsored enterprises were way ahead of where they were in the first six months of last year ...

Lenders will be asking the Department of Housing and Urban Development to clarify the eligibility of borrowers with deferred immigration status for an FHA-insured loan. A mortgage industry trade group is currently drafting a letter on “a series of technical FHA handbook recommendations,” including greater clarity on loan applications submitted by borrowers registered under the government’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA status was offered to children who were brought illegally into the U.S. by their parents or guardians but have been in the country for most of their lives. The program was created by the Obama administration as a way for recipients to work legally in the country while Congress could agree on what to do with them. The program faces uncertainty after President Trump rescinded it in September last year as part of his administration’s zero-tolerance immigration ...

More than half of FHA-insured loans analyzed for material defects have been mitigated over a 12-month period, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s latest quarterly loan-review analysis. Approximately 31,396 loans were analyzed over four quarters for possible defects, beginning in the third quarter of 2017 and ending the second quarter of 2018. Approximately 59.8 percent of the reviewed loans were initially deemed unacceptable. HUD data showed that most, 54.1 percent, of the loans reviewed have been successfully mitigated. The report provides a quarter-by-quarter snapshot of the FHA’s Loan Review System results. Net defects represent outcomes after lenders have implemented methods and techniques to mitigate or remediate the initial findings. Of the reviewed loans, 24.7 percent were conforming while 15.5 percent were found to be deficient. About 0.2 percent of loans were ...