The House Financial Services Committee this week approved a revised bill that would revive a controversial FHA program for seller-funded downpayment assistance and allow the agency to deploy a new risk-based premium program. Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-MA, pushed a revised version of H.R. 6694, the FHA Seller-Financed Downpayment Reform and...
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The Department of Housing and Urban Development and other federal regulators say the HOPE for Homeowners program will be up and running by its anticipated Oct. 1 implementation date, but there are still major hurdles in the way. In a testimony before the House Financial Services Committee this week, FHA Commissioner Brian Montgomery said, “we have been working...
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New developments in the ongoing train wreck on Wall Street may not have much impact on the mortgage originations market, but the demise of Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers does put in play more than $220 billion in mortgage servicing. Lehman Brothers Bank, a Delaware-based thrift, had some $126.8 billion of single-family mortgage loans and servicing rights on its books as of the end of the...
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Originations of higher priced mortgages fell dramatically last year as lenders tuned their production engines to lower-risk products and a number of companies fell out of the market altogether, according to a Federal Reserve Board analysis of newly available Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. The share of closed loans that met the Fed’s higher priced mortgage reporting trigger... [Includes two charts]
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House lawmakers took the Department of Housing and Urban Development to task this week for not appearing at a hearing to defend its proposed changes to streamline Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act regulations. HUD sent a draft final rule to the Office of Management and Budget in August after getting widespread criticism of its earlier proposal. Rep. Melvin Watt, D-NC, chairman of the...
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The Federal Reserve Board may have exposed lenders to enforcement action by state attorneys general and class-action lawsuits by declaring that certain lending practices are unfair even if they won’t be regulated under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act until next year. Compliance experts on an audio conference hosted by Inside Mortgage Finance Publications last...
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The mortgage banking industry has mapped out its lobbying priorities through next year, including expanding the Fannie/Freddie restructuring debate to an aggressive overhaul of the mortgage capital markets, harmonizing early loan disclosures, and implementing the new housing law. The current environment presents an opportunity for a bold “do over” for the mortgage industry, to...
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Refinancing remained the major reason borrowers took out a new mortgage during the second quarter of 2008, although the refi share of new production dropped significantly, according to a new market analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. An estimated $232.0 billion of refinance mortgages were originated during the second quarter, down 23 percent from the first... [Includes one chart]
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