Compliance & Regulation

Home value data reported by Pro Teck Valuation Services confirm that state regulation will continue to negatively affect property values and the housing recovery.

The battle over how to craft affordable housing requirements as part of mortgage finance reform took center stage on Thursday as witnesses at a Senate Banking Committee hearing sparred over the issue, including whether dedicated funds should be subject to Congressional appropriations.

Consumers who refinanced their mortgages over the last year or so still saw stacks of paper on the closing table. Now, an unlikely agent of change may help push paperless adoption: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The lender paid a $7.5 million fine in July for violating the do not call list regulations and that might have had more to do with its shutdown.

Emphasis on refinancing has left the purchase market in the dust.

The industry is still working through the mortgage loan delinquency and foreclosure problems of the past, especially in states where foreclosures are processed in a court of law, insiders say.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Thursday it was charging Castle & Cooke Mortgage $13 million in penalties for allegedly pushing consumers into costlier mortgages in order to give kickbacks to loan officers.

The GSE benefits from lower defaults, rising home prices. It is now within a few billion dollars of paying off its debt to taxpayers.

Rates have reversed a downward trend that occurred after the Federal Reserve indicated it will keep easing. If this trend continues, refinancings are likely to decline again.

Those loan officers who lack integrity will not be successful.