Compliance

Acquisitions of large portfolios of single-family rental properties are continuing at a rapid pace, even as investors concentrate on renovating, and filling vacancies in, their existing inventories.

Unlike other regulatory agencies that in many cases looked at form over substance, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will ignore structures altogether when it perceives them to be "sham" transactions.

New York's banking regulator asked Ocwen Financial Corp. for information about an insurance agreement that it says may be designed to funnel fees to an Ocwen affiliate for minimal work.

Mortgage-bond trustees rejected a part of JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s $4.5 billion settlement offer over investor claims of faulty mortgages while accepting the deal for most of the transactions.

The unintended consequences of these guidelines could force smaller title agencies to close their doors.

Investors have spent years seeking compensation for losses sustained during the housing bust from the firms that made mortgage loans and repackaged them into securities.

While distressed borrowers said they're more satisfied with the customer service they receive today than a year ago, servicers with large portfolios of distressed loans were still ranked lower than their peers in a recent J.D. Power survey.

If finalized and then approved by regulators, the combination of the Des Moines and Seattle Home Loan banks would be the first voluntary merger in the system’s history.

Bank of America Corp. is nearing a settlement with the Justice Department after raising its proposed offer to resolve probes into its sale of mortgage-backed bonds in the run-up to the financial crisis.

Delinquency rates for commercial mortgage-backed securities improved slightly in July, according to a report released Wednesday by Trepp.

Bank of America Corp.'s Countrywide unit was ordered to pay $1.3 billion in penalties for defective mortgage loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, a little more than half of what the federal government had requested.

Equifax Inc. has created a new Verification of Hazard Insurance service for mortgage and home equity lenders.

Customer relationship management technology and new regulations require lenders and loan officers to re-evaluate how they manage the ownership and use of lead sheets.

Interest rates for mortgages over $417,000 have fallen 11 basis points during the past six weeks, driven by competition among banks to win the mortgage business of wealthy, less risky borrowers and in turn, make them customers of other financial products.

The CFPB and other regulators are showing an increasing appetite for big data. The HMDA database may be the biggest in the mortgage business and a preview of the upcoming dataset may give lenders a chance to stay one step ahead of the feds.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau requests data that if used too zealously could cause a massive restriction in the market and a reduction in the type and amount of lenders.

Acquiring the technology vendor would help Altisource build a marketplace for ancillary mortgage services and reduce the company's reliance on its former parent and top client, Ocwen.

New and experienced compliance experts have to learn the nuances of all the new regulations.

Mortgage executives are optimistic about the direction of the housing industry, but still think it is difficult for consumers to obtain real estate financing.

Although the proposal to add more Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requirements was required by the Dodd-Frank Act, those in the lending industry said they were taken aback by the amount of additional information the CFPB is seeking, arguing it goes way beyond the regulatory reform law.