At the end of fiscal year 2015 the two GSEs had combined REO holdings of 78,738 units, a 36 percent decline from the prior year…

Some believe the FHA MMIF minimum capital standard should be 4.5 percent, not 2.0 percent.

Seemingly small differences in monthly mortgage payments for borrowers in bankruptcy helped prompt an $81.6 million settlement between Wells Fargo and the Department of Justice late last week. The DOJ’s U.S. Trustee Program said Wells repeatedly violated federal bankruptcy rules that took effect in December 2011 and imposed more detailed disclosure requirements to ensure proper accounting of fees and charges for borrowers in bankruptcy. The main instance cited in the settlement agreement was...

“I don’t think it does a lot of good to play the ‘blame game’ and I don’t think that’s where the solution lies,” said Brian Benson, CEO of ClosingCorp.

Vendors that have been supplying the mortgage lending community with the technology necessary to implement the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s integrated disclosure rule are suddenly under regulatory scrutiny over the struggles some lenders have had in being fully compliant with the new regulation. The so-called TRID rule took effect Oct. 3, 2015. A dark cloud began...

Nobody likes getting a mortgage, but interactive technology – if implemented correctly – can make the process significantly more transparent and less stressful, industry experts say. There is an opportunity in technology to make the system more transparent and help educate the next generation of homeowners, as well as minority groups, said Robert Greenbaum, director of communications and marketing at Fannie Mae, during a panel session at the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association. “They aspire...

First Mortgage Corp., Ontario, CA, this month completed its liquidation, selling its branch network and $6 billion of servicing rights to other firms, and winding down a 44-year-old business that catered to FHA borrowers with lower credit scores. Jean Ziroli-Kobielsky, a recruiter for the family-owned business, noted that it wasn’t fear of regulatory oversight that prompted her father and brother to sell FMC, it was technology: “Some of our technology systems were still using DOS,” she told Inside Mortgage Finance. (DOS, or disk operating system, was the precursor to the Microsoft Windows software line for PCs.) She said...

The CSP joint venture is staffed and “no longer living like poor cousins” at the GSEs themselves.

In a spurt of new activity unveiled at the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association this week, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are ramping up the competition between each other, announcing new programs and partnerships and acting as though housing reform is not on the radar anytime soon. And it may not be. While rumors have swirled recently, hinting that the government-sponsored enterprises may be released from conservatorship, White House and Treasury officials confirmed this week that there are no such plans to recapitalize and release the two from government stewardship. “None of us should be misled...

The theme Cressey and other experts repeatedly drove home is that the industry can never get ahead of the threat.