The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently upheld a lower court dismissal of a False Claims Act lawsuit alleging a lender’s violation of the 2012 National Mortgage Settlement and of the Home Affordable Modification Program. In Laurence Schneider, Appellant, v. JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., et al., Appellees, the federal government declined to intervene, allowing the qui tam lawsuit to proceed. Schneider, the relator and an owner of a mortgage servicing company that purchased numerous loans from Chase, alleged that the lender falsely claimed compliance with the $25 billion landmark settlement negotiated in 2012 between the federal government, 40 state attorneys general, and a group of large banks, including Chase. The settlement resolved claims against the banks for allegedly improper origination and servicing of conventional, FHA and VA loans that were thought to ...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture provided $19.3 billion in rural housing loan guarantees under its largest single-family housing program in FY 2017, according to the USDA Rural Housing Service. Last year’s total guarantees were $2.92 billion more than in fiscal 2016. Approximately 137,071 USDA loans were securitized in 2017. According to RHS, in October 2017, the loan guarantee upfront fee fell from 2.75 percent plus a monthly 0.5 percent fee to 1.0 percent plus an annual fee of 0.35 percent. The fee drop helped reverse a decline in obligations from the previous year, RHS noted. The average income for a Section 502 single-family guaranteed loan borrower was $59,191 in fiscal 2017, up from $57,962 in the prior fiscal year. For the lower-income Section 502 Direct program, USDA provided approximately $1.0 billion in housing loan guarantees, about $41.7 million higher than the ...

FHA delinquencies rose sharply in Puerto Rico following the devastation brought by hurricanes Maria and Irma last year. At the end of 2017, 28.8 percent of FHA mortgages on the island were at some stage of delinquency, including 15.8 percent that have fallen 90 days behind on their mortgage payments. Deutsche Bank Securities analysts believe the spike in delinquency rates overall is “a short-term phenomenon.” They noted that FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have declared temporary moratoria on evictions and foreclosures in Puerto Rico and other hurricane-ravaged regions. Issuer exposures in devastated areas remain unclear and Ginnie Mae has not updated its MBS hurricane exposure data since October last year. In the initial disclosure, the agency reported 9.7 percent (1,066,028 loans) of its total MBS portfolio were impacted by Harvey, Irma and Maria. The affected loans’ unpaid principal ...

Ginnie Mae Announces New Issuer Disclosure File Layout. Ginnie Mae will make available a new test file layout for new issuer disclosures on Feb. 26, 2018, on its New Release Test File Download page. The new issuer disclosure file will show basic address and program information on active and inactive Ginnie issuers. The file will be published monthly and will contain data for issuers in Ginnie’s mortgage-backed securities programs for single family, multifamily, manufactured housing, and Home Equity Conversion Mortgages. The new file eliminates unnecessary fields and includes the issuer’s Ginnie program and its active/inactive status. Ginnie is planning to implement the new file in May 2018 as a replacement for the old issuer file. The final issuer file will be published in April 2018. HUD Provides Recovery Funds to U.S. Virgin Islands. The Department of Housing and Urban Affairs has ...

At yearend, 28.8 percent of FHA mortgages in Puerto Rico were in some stage of delinquency, including 15.8 percent that were 90 days or more past due. These ultra-high late-payment readings – courtesy of hurricanes Maria and Irma – have caught the attention of both Ginnie Mae and the FHA. …

January volume was the lowest monthly total since May 2017…

The conventional-conforming market held up relatively well in the fourth quarter, with origination volume easing by just 0.7 percent…

Issuers cited by Ginnie Mae are expected to deliver a corrective action plan...

In the summer of 2015, The Blackstone Group bought a controlling interest in Stearns.

Analyst Barry Habib of MBS Highway told us last week that once the yield breaks above 3.00 percent it’s only a matter of time before it hits 3.80. Just think of what that might do to the mortgage business…