Mortgages

The New York Court of Appeals late Thursday agreed to allow the National Association of Federal Credit Unions to argue that the state's federally chartered CUs should be exempt from the state's mortgage recordation tax.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is using its authority over non-banks to target independent mortgage servicing companies.

Fitch's U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities report shows 2011 ending with another decrease in delinquencies during December, but notes that office delinquencies are continuing on an upward trajectory.

Wells Fargo & Co. has agreed to pay nearly $1 million in restitution to Maryland residents who lost their homes to foreclosure after receiving so-called "Pick-a-Payment" mortgages.

University Bank in Ann Arbor, Mich., has acquired an additional 37.5% stake in a specialty finance firm which it already half owned.

This week President Obama told the Senate to take a hike, installing former Ohio AG Richard Cordray as the new head of the CFPB via a recess appointment. But the real story here is that the White House continues to use loan brokers as the whipping boy for the housing/mortgage meltdown.

The trend toward fewer loans becoming delinquent appears to have halted momentarily, according to the latest mortgage monitor report released by Lender Processing Services.

People constantly ask me whether flexible or variable pricing violates fair lending laws. Before addressing this question, it is important to remember that fair lending claims ask whether differences exist in the pricing minorities receive as compared to non-minorities to a sufficient degree that these differences cannot be explained by randomness?

Almost hands down most mortgage trade groups and sectors of the business have shot down a "fee for service" concept to replace the existing GSE servicing compensation structure. But don't tell that to Lenders One, a nationwide cooperative of residential funders.

National Association of Mortgage Brokers president Don Frommeyer weighed in on what he feels are inordinate disclosure requirements loan brokers face during a recent discussion at the group's NAMB/West Show in Las Vegas.

Strong refinancing activity spurred mortgage companies to add new loan officers and processors to their payrolls in November for the second consecutive month.

Two high ranking Democratic congressmen plan to hold a hearing later this month in Chicago to highlight the failure of mortgage servicers to adequately maintain foreclosed properties.

In the rollercoaster world of bank owned properties, now might be the time when the ride starts to take a drastic turn. Many analysts projected 2011 as the year when the backlog of foreclosure cases would hit the market, but this did not occur, leading to a lot of speculation about the future of these properties heading into 2012.

Servicing technology has both progressed significantly and become obsolete, at least in the view of Dave Vida, a mortgage industry veteran of more than 20 years who, like most of his peers, is eyeing what to do next.

If all the mortgage industry economists are correct (and let's face it, their track record over the past few years is not good) 2012 is expected to have fewer loan origination opportunities than 2011. So any source of sales advice can be seen as a helping hand.

PHH Corp., which this week ousted its CEO amid perceived liquidity concerns, may start selling some of its huge holdings of mortgage servicing rights, according to industry analysts.

The mailbag for the week between Christmas and New Year's was, as you might expect, pretty light. Both messages I received were about the same story, which claimed that four of ten home sales in 2011 were cash-only deals, no mortgage. Our two correspondents questioned the particulars of that story.

Mortgage bankers funded $26.6 billion of jumbo loans during the third quarter, a handsome 30% gain from the same period a year earlier, according to new survey figures compiled by National Mortgage News and the Quarterly Data Report.

Delinquencies on home equity lines of credit rose a scant 2 basis points in the third quarter to 1.93%, according to new figures compiled by the American Bankers Association.

The 30 days-plus delinquency rate for U.S. commercial real estate loans in CMBS climbed seven basis points to 9.58% in December, according to Trepp LLC.