Guess
what opened up on this date 100 years ago? No, it wasn't the first Starbucks.
The Panama Canal opened. Do you think the mortgage industry will settle all the
lawsuits and complaints by the time the 200 year anniversary rolls around? I
hope so. The latest settlement involved Freedom Mortgage and
discrimination. And we had the recent SunTrust Mortgage
Force-Placed Insurance Class Action Settlement. But those regulating and
monitoring lenders aren't immune to making mistakes, and this story explains
how the CFPB admits it made false allegations
about credit unions.
I
am sure that it was more recent than 100 years ago, but it is a rare
phenomenon when a lender's existing branches see a pick-up in purchase business
in the autumn and winter months - and companies are gearing their overhead
accordingly. Granted, many companies are seeing decent volumes - but it is
still summer and much of that is from the addition of LOs and branches.
Meanwhile, lenders everywhere are doing what they can to keep decent
producers in their stables: free skittles in the lunch room, trips to
places with lots of vowels in the name, that kind of thing. (And for some,
"decent" might be as few as 2-3 loans a month!) Companies attempting
to keep staff include Wells Fargo, as this Bloomberg article points
out.
The
Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta has joined the MPF program that allows its
banks, credit unions and other members to sell fixed-rate, conforming mortgages
on the secondary market. The FHLB Atlanta became the 10th regional bank in the Federal
Home Loan Bank System, a federal housing finance agency, to participate in the
Mortgage Partnership Finance (MPF) program, which was created in 1997 by the
FHLB of Chicago. Reuters reports that "Through the MPF's 'Xtra' product,
home loans made by members of a participating FHLB are bundled and sold to
Fannie Mae FNMA.OB, a sibling housing finance agency, at competitive rates,
FHLB Atlanta said. At the end of 2013, FHLB Atlanta had nearly 1,000 members
and $122.3 billion in assets. All of the district FHLBs provide 'advances' or
loans to their members to lend to homeowners or potential home buyers. 'With
MPF Xtra, our shareholders, regardless of their size, can offer their customers
the same competitively-priced loans and keep the option to sell or retain the
servicing of those loans,' FHLB Atlanta Executive Vice President and Chief
Business Officer Robert Dozier said in a statement. The other FHLBs in the MPF
program are Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Des Moines, New York, Pittsburgh, San
Francisco, Seattle and Topeka."
Affiliated's
correspondent announcement, not impacting its wholesale or retail channels,
was short and sweet. "Dear Correspondent Partner, as you are aware, there
have been significant changes within the mortgage industry that have impacted
our business over the past several years. Based on the current environment, and
after careful consideration, Affiliated Mortgage Company has made the
difficult decision to exit the correspondent business effective on Friday,
August 15, 2014. Per our contract, we will continue to accept locks through
August 30, 2014. Effective Monday, August 18, 2014, extensions or re-locks on
any locked loan will not be allowed. Rest assured that loans in our current
pipeline, as well as those loans locked by the 30th, will be processed and
purchased according to our usual guidelines. We ask that you fulfill your
contractual obligations with regard to your active locks with AMC. We will be
available to answer any questions or conditions that arise concerning your
loans until all pipelines are cleared. Please consider this official
termination under the terms of our purchase and sales agreement." To
repeat, its wholesale and retail channels are carrying on - business as usual.
At
the other end of the spectrum, Baton Rouge-based GMFS was purchased last week by Zais
Financial out of New Jersey for $61 million, and now Bloomberg reports that REIT
Zais will soon start locking and funding non-agency loans within
qualified-mortgage rules that will "expand credit slightly beyond what's
available in the prime-jumbo market today. Zais CEO Michael Szymanski said,
"We expect to see some expansion in our offering versus where the market
is today on items such as LTV, transaction type, occupancy status...Could be
>85% LTVs, though "certainly not 97%," and "there would be
obviously mitigating factors that we felt were a good offset."
Bloomberg
also reports that rival REIT Western Asset Mortgage plans to start
buying new whole loans this quarter, with focus on high credit quality, non-QM
mortgages "where we believe that we can earn higher net interest
spreads without taking on much incremental credit risk," CIO Anup Agarwal
said.
Secure Settlements, Inc. (SSI), a data intelligence and risk analytics company for the mortgage industry, today announced that it has concluded a strategic joint venture agreement with CIS Information Services (CIS), a credit reporting and business risk assessment firm to streamline and enhance the SSI's suite of vendor management and risk monitoring products and services. CIS will provide technology integration and access to critical public data to improve the SSI risk reports and will also offer the SSI suite of mortgage industry data intelligence products to its existing client base of more than 2,000 businesses nationwide. (Secure Settlements recently partnered E.R. Munro & Company to offer SSI vetted low risk title agents access to competitively priced surety and fidelity bonds.)
Hey
- here's something you can print out for a little weekend reading at the beach:
FHFA's proposal for a single security.
FHFA released a white paper requesting input on a proposed structure for a
Single Security that would be issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The MBA
has called for a common agency, TBA-eligible security for more than two years,
and development of the Single Security was a significant part of FHFA's 2014
Strategic Plan for the GSEs. "The MBA is analyzing the white paper and
will be forming a working group to study its impact and craft a response to
FHFA." And if you are interested in being part of this effort contact the
MBA's Dan McPheeters.
Let's
see what vendors have been up to recently. After all, plenty of
companies are using them to lower fixed costs and rely on their expertise. The
residential lending business has become so complicated that it has become like
the medical profession. One just doesn't just go to the "eye doctor"
anymore. One goes to the retina specialist, or the "cataract
surgeon". And lenders just can't rely on a good underwriter to take over
servicing or compliance, or a lock desk person to hedge a $100 million
pipeline. When one walks around the conference exhibition halls, they are
filled with vendors and counterparties peddling their wares. The Rise of the
Vendor!
The
CFPB is calling out banks for not publicly disclosing campus financial
product marketing agreements Full Story. The Office of
the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has issued Bulletin 2014-37 on Consumer
Debt Sales (the "Bulletin"). The Bulletin addresses the application
of consumer protection requirements and safe and sound banking practices to
debt sales by OCC-supervised institutions (national banks and federal thrifts)
of all sizes, including community banks OCC Bulletin.
National
MI
announced that National MI's mortgage insurance products have been directly
integrated with D+H's MortgagebotLOS, an all-in-one loan origination system (LOS) that supports retail,
wholesale and correspondent mortgage lending. As a result of this integration,
lenders who use MortgagebotLOS can now order National MI policies from within
the loan origination system, saving time and streamlining the process for
lenders," said Pete Pannes, chief sales officer of National MI.
Auction.com has launched an online
community welcome designed to provide
novice and experienced real estate buyers and sellers with a place to learn
more about Auction.com and the real estate auction process in general. The new
resource is intended to enhance customer support and create a collaborative
environment where consumers can learn from the company and each other.
Lender
Direct Inc.
website turned some heads
with its offer to compensate Realtors 0.75% on Every Loan While Being RESPA
Compliant. FHA and VA Programs with minimum FICO of 580, FHA manual underwrite
ok with max DTI 43%. DU Refi Plus and LP Open Access Refi with 125% LTV max and
620 minimum FICO, just to name a few details Lender Direct is offering.
Equifax's availability of its verification of hazard
insurance (VOHI) for mortgage and home equity lenders is said to improve
processing time. Its turnkey process verifies the status of homeowners'
insurance on purchases, refinances and home equity loans and lines, reducing delays
and processing costs while streamlining the loan origination process.
Rates
continue to be very low - there doesn't seem to be much reason for them to go
much higher. And the demand for longer-dated maturity instruments continues
to be strong - and those are a long way away from overnight Fed Funds in the
yield curve. Yesterday we had a decent amount of news. Jobless Claims rose
21k, and the previous week's level was revised up by 1k from 289k to 290k. The
4-week moving average was 295,750, an increase of 2k from the previous week's
revised average. U.S. Import Prices fell .2%, and import prices for automotive
vehicles fell 0.8% last month - the largest drop since 1992. All is quiet
overseas, but there continue to be articles which include both "Europe"
and "recession" in the same sentence.
We
come to the end of yet another week here in the business world, with a day
including a decent amount of economic news. Despite all the experts thinking
inflation would be out of control by now due to Quantitative Easing, it hasn't
happened. Today we had the Producer Price Index out: it was expected to be flat
with the core rate +.2%, and came out at +.1% & +.2%. The Empire State
Manufacturing number of August came out (expected to drop to 19 from 25.60, it
came in at 14!) as well as the Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization
couplet, expected +.1% and 79%, respectively, and the Thomson Reuters /
University of Michigan Survey of Consumers. As a benchmark, the 10-year T-Note
saw a 2.40% close Thursday and this morning we're at 2.39% and agency MBS prices
are better by about .125.
No comments:
Post a Comment