Origination

Credit unions are working to protect their net interest margins without adding undue interest rate risk and CFOs expect their attention in the second half of the year will remain on squeezing what they can from investment portfolios.

Fitch Ratings and Kroll Bond Ratings will rate the $1.1 billion CMBS conduit deal backed by 61 fixed-rate commercial mortgage loans that are secured by 80 properties.

The Supreme Court in Freeman v. Quicken Loans No. 10-1042 ruled that federal regulators cannot use RESPA as a price-setting statute to stop lenders and other settlement service providers from charging excessive fees or even “unearned” or bogus fees for which no service is provided.

Although the U.S. soccer team lost to Brazil the other night we can thank the interest rate gods that investors, world wide, keep buying our Treasury bonds, driving prices up and bond yield downs. In the past I've joked about a 30-year fixed rate loan at 2% and I'm starting to believe that it could happen.

Amherst notes that lending standards in FHA/VA programs have remained “roughly constant” with more activity gravitating toward the two programs.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has served official notice that it is seeking comment on a range of issues—including the cost of potential litigation—and whether debt-to-income ratios should be used to determine a borrower’s “ability to repay” a residential loan.

The expanded Home Affordable Refinancing Program kicked into full speed during the first quarter with volumes doubling to 180,000 units compared to the prior period.

The latest round of weaker-than-expected U.S. employment numbers has driven the long-term rate-indicative 10-year Treasury yield to yet another record low.

So folks who recall that the Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach county market was one of the hardest hit during the housing crash might question the sanity of starting a total of 6,300 more apartments so soon after the debacle.

With all the troubling news coming out of Washington for lenders these days, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a much-needed win to the industry last week. In Freeman v. Quicken Loans, the U.S. Supreme Court held that no cause of action existed under RESPA for a lender’s retention of a marked up fee.