Ginnie Mae recently announced changes to rules implementing provisions under the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act for reimbursing excess mortgage interest to Ginnie Mae issuers. Under the revised SCRA reimbursement policy, issuers will be reimbursed excess interest payments on SCRA mortgage loans based on two different dates for reservists and active members of the military, said Ginnie Mae officials during an issuer outreach webinar on Dec. 8. If the borrower is a reservist, the reimbursement will be based on the date of the receipt of the deployment letter and reimbursements for active members will be based on the deployment date. Under the SCRA, mortgage lenders are required to ...

Total FHA endorsements declined 4.2 percent in October from the previous month and 29.7 percent from a year ago even as FHA refinances continued to slow, according to an Inside FHA Lending analysis of FHA data. A total of 88,060 mortgages were endorsed for FHA insurance in October, down from 91,963 loans in September. Of the October endorsements, 60,596 were purchase loans, down 9.0 percent from the previous month and 7.9 percent from the same reporting period last year. FHA refinancing increased 15.4 percent on a month-to-month basis but declined a whopping 57.9 percent from last year. Streamlined FHA refis were ... (Comes with one chart)

Ginnie Mae may not be accurately disclosing its financial exposures to Congress because it is not fully implementing federal accounting guidance and using critical information, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office. GAO auditors found that Ginnie Mae did not stick to federal accounting guidance in developing the inputs and procedures for reporting forecast costs and revenues. Under the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Board guidance for preparing cost estimates of federal credit programs, reporting entities are required to develop estimates...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is weighing a number of options, including raising insurance premiums for the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund as political concerns grow that the program may need a taxpayer bailout. Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee last week, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said he plans to include premium increases and other proposals in the department’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal to bring the FHA’s excess capital reserves back to the required level. Donovan said the FHA continues to evaluate policy options to...

Bank of America and Wells Fargo continued their dominance of the FHA servicing market, accounting for 55.1 percent of the business as of Sept. 30. Of the 1,177,858 FHA-insured loans currently being serviced, 16.91 percent are in various stages of delinquency. Seriously delinquent loans – 90 days or more behind on their mortgage payments – comprised ... [includes one chart]

Non-agency participants maintain that the reinstatement of “emergency” high-cost loan limits for FHA loans – but not Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac – will not impede originations of non-agency jumbo mortgages. Meanwhile, some housing trade groups and congressmen representing high-cost districts continue to push for a reinstatement of the government-sponsored enterprises’ high-cost loan limits. In November, President Obama signed legislation that restored the maximum $729,750 loan limit for the highest-cost FHA markets ...

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan this week told Congress that the FHA is considering a number of policy options, including further premium increases, to bolster the long-term health of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, Donovan said he expects to address premium increases in HUD’s FY 2013 budget proposal given the concerns raised by lawmakers regarding the impact of the reinstated maximum loan limits on the FHA’s declining capital reserves. Having higher loan limits than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will result in ...

Contrary to what critics claim about the recent increase in the FHA’s loan limits, high-balance mortgage loans insured by FHA have shown historically lower delinquency rates and, therefore, pose no significant risk to taxpayers or the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, said Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan. Notwithstanding the agency’s opposition to legislation reinstating the pre-Oct. 1 temporary maximum loan limits for FHA, Donovan said early evidence, so far, shows that high-balance loans perform better than other FHA-insured loans. Last month, Congress enacted legislation reinstating ...

Jumbo lenders do not expect the higher FHA loan limits to have any adverse impact on their GSE business. Anyone seeking a loan above $625,500 only has one choice, and that is FHA, but the real question is how much business the conventional market would lose to FHA, lenders said. In addition to the higher loan limit, the FHA insures loans of more than 80 percent loan-to-value ratio and requires a 3.5 percent downpayment. The GSEs require a 20 percent downpayment on their jumbos. On the other hand, the private market offers loans above the GSE limits but does not originate loans in excess of 80 percent LTV. “For people seeking under-80 LTV loans, it is unlikely that ... [Includes one data chart]

Whatever FHA relief the Department of Housing and Urban Development may offer as part of a pending settlement of foreclosure-related charges will not necessarily let mortgage servicers off the hook, said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.Donovan assured lawmakers during a House Financial Services Committee hearing this week that any offer of relief from any FHA liability in connection with ongoing robo-signing settlement talks would be “in exchange for significant penalties and help to homeowners who were wronged by bad servicing practices.” The HUD secretary neither confirmed nor denied the ...