Two studies published this week have found that reduced pricing and declining costs have given conventional mortgages with private mortgage insurance an edge over FHA in the battle for high-quality borrowers. When FHA reduced its annual premium by half a percent for most forward loans 15 months ago, FHA mortgages offered a more affordable payment option for borrowers compared to private MI, according to a new Urban Institute study. FHA’s lower mortgage insurance premium benefited particularly those who could afford a monthly mortgage payment but don’t have the required 20 percent downpayment as well as borrowers with pristine credit, wrote authors Laurie Goodman, director of UI’s Housing Finance Policy Center, and researcher Bing Bai. Until FHA’s 2015 premium cut, private MI was picking up some market share. The FHA price adjustment pushed FHA’s share to ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has called upon holders of VA-guaranteed single-family mortgage loans to extend forbearance to distressed homeowners affected by the severe storms and flooding in Louisiana and Texas. In recent guidance, the VA described measures VA lenders may employ to provide relief to disaster-stricken homeowners. The agency recommended careful counseling to see whether borrower difficulties are related to the storms or have been the result of other events. If appropriate, prepayments may be reapplied to cure or prevent a borrower default. Servicers also may consider loan modification without VA’s prior approval if certain regulatory conditions are met. Although the holder of the loan is ultimately responsible for determining when to initiate foreclosure or complete termination action, the VA has requested a 90-day freeze on ...

Declining interest rates introduced considerable uncertainty into the valuation of mortgage servicing rights during the first quarter of 2016, leading to a decline in bulk transfers of agency MSR, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis. Bulk sales of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae servicing rights totaled just $36.16 billion during the first three months of this year, a 37.2 percent drop from the fourth quarter of 2015. That was down ... [Includes one data chart]

The Ginnie Mae servicing market continued to grow during the first three months of 2016, with most of the impetus coming from the VA home loan guaranty program. A new Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of mortgage-backed securities data reveals that the amount of Ginnie servicing outstanding swelled to $1.544 trillion as of the end of March, a 1.65 percent gain from the previous quarter. Because issuer-servicers regularly repurchase seriously delinquent loans out of Ginnie MBS pools, the actual volume of government-insured loans outstanding was somewhat higher. The VA program saw the most growth, increasing by 3.25 percent in just three months, while FHA servicing in Ginnie MBS rose only 0.96 percent from December 2015. Servicing of rural housing loans guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture was up 1.34 percent, while the FHA insurance program for Native Americans ... {4 charts]

The Department of Veterans Affairs has issued new guidance clarifying how VA lenders should comply with the disclosure requirements of the new TRID rule. TRID, which stands for Truth in Lending Act-Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosures, was adopted in final form by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Oct. 3, 2015. Specifically, TRID establishes new requirements regarding mortgage disclosure forms, which lenders must use for all home loans. Lenders are required to itemize the services and fees they charge to borrowers on the TRID disclosure forms, instead of on the HUD-1 closing statement, in connection with a loan application to purchase or refinance an existing mortgage. However, switching from the HUD-1 to the TRID form has caused uncertainty among VA lenders as to how to complete the new forms. VA’s TRID guidance lays out ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued a notice to establish a computer-matching program between FHA and the VA that would enable the two agencies to prescreen mortgage applicants. The notice was published in the April 15 Federal Register. The computer-matching program would allow HUD to incorporate VA debtor files into the department’s Credit Alert Verification Reporting System (CAVRS). Consequently, both the FHA and VA would be able to prescreen loan applicants and identify who is delinquent or in default on a federally guaranteed mortgage loan. The use of CAVRS would allow HUD to monitor its FHA programs better and prevent the extension of credit to individuals who are delinquent or in default on their obligations to HUD and other federal agencies. Meanwhile, VA expects to achieve savings through risk reduction and ...

Ginnie Mae issued $93.41 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the first three months of 2016, an 8.6 percent drop from the previous quarter, according to a new Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of loan-level MBS data, excluding FHA reverse-mortgage activity. Early 2016 was the slowest market in a year for Ginnie MBS production, though it still was stronger than most of the agency’s pre-2015 business. And issuance in the first quarter of 2016 was 17.0 percent ahead of the volume produced during the same period last year. The soft spot in the first quarter was FHA lending, especially purchase-mortgage activity. Issuers delivered $54.44 billion of FHA loans into Ginnie MBS during the period, a 12.1 percent drop from the fourth quarter, including a 15.0 percent decline in FHA purchase mortgages. Securitization of VA loans fell by a ... [4 charts].

Approximately 300 FHA lenders are seeing their recertifications held up because they failed to report in a timely manner events or changes that may affect their eligibility to participate in FHA programs.Delays are occurring because lenders have failed to notify the FHA of material events as soon as they have occurred and waited until the annual recertification to report them, according to industry sources. Under rules of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a notice of material event alerts the agency to a significant change to the information provided by the lender at application that may affect its status as an FHA-approved lender. The department strongly encourages lenders to notify FHA within 10 days of the event to prevent delays during the annual recertification. Each FHA lender must complete the annual recertification process in order to retain its FHA approval. Lenders must ...

Policy changes are underway to prevent nonprofit groups from gaining an unfair advantage over legitimate investors in purchasing real estate-owned properties under the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s single-family property disposition program. An audit conducted by the HUD inspector general found that certain nonprofits were acting as investors while purchasing REO homes through HUD’s distressed-asset sales program. While this may seem to be a case of nonprofits gaming the system, the IG said no regulations were violated because program requirements did not explicitly bar nonprofits from acting as investors during the exclusive listing period. HUD’s distressed-asset sales program is designed to clear the department’s REO inventory in a manner that expands homeownership opportunities, strengthens neighborhoods and communities, and ensures a ...

The FHA has issued new, more permissive loss-mitigation guidelines for Home Equity Conversion Mortgages, including an optional extension for mortgagees when submitting due-and-payable requests. Additionally, the guidelines allow mortgagees to cure a HECM borrower’s taxes and/or insurance defaults as long as the FHA incurs no cost and the mortgagee agrees to refrain from seeking loan assignment for at least three years. The guidelines further remove a previous restriction prohibiting the use of the permissive loss-mitigation options announced in Mortgagee Letter 2015-11 for borrowers in foreclosure. Accordingly, for HECM loans that were in the process of foreclosure prior to the issuance of ML-2015-11, mortgagees may assess those borrowers for a repayment plan in accordance with the mortgagee letter. The repayment plan must have the ...