Compliance & Regulation

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is charting the course for new regulation on qualified mortgages, the new QM rule. Their goal is to dissuade lenders from partaking of mortgage loan programs that involve undo risk taking by imposing more stringent underwriting principals to potential loan applicants, including requiring that borrowers show they have the ability to repay a loan.

There is a dichotomy that has developed in the warehouse lending marketplace, said one industry consultant. There are more of these lenders around than a few years ago. But they are looking to make credit available only for loans that fit their overlays.

The Mortgage Bankers Association is calling for a merger of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s mortgage bonds both as a “first step” in transitioning into a single security.

Genworth Financial—which has been losing market share to rivals Radian and United Guaranty—this week made the decision to reduce its mortgage insurance rates for borrowers with loan-to-value ratios equal to or less than 95%.

Lenders, for the first time, are facing the possibility of paying "actual damages" as a result of the “qualified mortgage” definition, an attorney warned attendees at the Mortgage Bankers Association's National Secondary Market Conference in New York.

Webster First FCU Monday denied ownership of a mortgage once held by Saugus FCU, which it acquired last year and that is the target of a lawsuit seeking to halt foreclosure proceedings.

Proponents of principal forgiveness are certainly well-intentioned and cannot be faulted for seeking opportunities to help troubled borrowers.

The head of Ginnie Mae said the agency is trying to “triage” its application problem after finding out that over the past year it could approve less than half of all applicants—and that several of those who received a green light have yet to issue any securities.

For the fifth consecutive year, the rate of mortgage fraud increased compared to the prior year. In 2011, there was an 8% rise in year-over-year fraudulent mortgage applications in the United Kingdom.

The housing finance system must be given back to the companies that make mortgages and the borrowers who use them to buy homes, keynote speakers said at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Secondary Market Conference.