Compliance

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has filed charges against three California-based home loan modification companies and nine of their employees for allegedly violating the Fair Housing Act.

Independent mortgage lenders are expecting a wave of consolidation prompted by excessive compliance costs, a tepid housing recovery and the need for more capital to grow their businesses. Roughly 20% to 25% of independent companies could be eliminated or change hands in less than two years.

President Obama's administration, citing concern about the origin of funds used for all-cash purchases of luxury real estate, said it is stepping up scrutiny of transactions in New York and Miami.

Community bankers and credit unions scored a significant victory while others in the mortgage industry lost out in the Federal Housing Finance Agency's final rule establishing membership standards for the Home Loan banks.

Private-label investors in residential mortgage-backed securities should be at only modest risk for noncompliance with TILA-RESPA integrated disclosure requirements, according to Fitch Ratings.

The agency scrapped a part of its 2014 proposal that would have required Home Loan Bank members to maintain a certain percentage of residential mortgage assets in order to keep their membership. But the agency held fast on a provision that would disqualify captive insurance firms from membership.

Recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau enforcement actions against lead generation companies emphasize the breadth of lenders' responsibility for the third parties they expose borrower clients to.

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro will get a boost in public visibility with a scheduled appearance on the Jan. 11 episode of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."

But the strong demand for tax credits from those projects is also whittling down the investment returns as their riskiness declines, according to a new report by the New York-based accounting firm CohnReznick.

A recent tax change will provide more stability to banks and developers that use the low-income housing tax credit program, and the supply of below-market-rate apartments should increase as a result. But it's not enough to create the economic incentives needed to meet skyrocketing demand for affordable housing in the U.S.