On
Dec. 8, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was set to expire.
Late last week Congress passed, and the President signed, a two-week
spending bill to avoid a government shutdown, allowing an extension on
the NFIP to 12/22. In the simplest terms, if the NFIP expires, virtually
no homes in any floodplain could be bought or sold if that deal involves
a mortgage company because anyone buying a home with a federally-backed
loan is required to carry flood insurance if that house sits in a flood
plain. Any way to run a country? We need a long
term solution and need to stop "kicking the can down
the road."
ARMCO announced new loan data validation tools. ACESRisk
Management (ARMCO),
the leading provider of financial quality control and compliance software
has announced the release of a new technology for mortgage lenders and
servicers that improves data
validation in
the QC process. ARMCO's new datavalidation
tool is
available through the most recent ACESAudit
Technology upgrade,
which was released on December 9, 2017. This upgrade's principal
enhancement is advanced process automation functionality that enables
ACES to automatically identify missing data within the loan file. Data
integrity issues are one of the top causes of critical defects, according
to research released in the most recent ARMCOMortgage
QC Industry Trends Report. With the system's new advanced automation
functionality, ACES now fulfills an essential function for avoiding data
validation errors.
FHA/VA/Ginnie
program changes
Iberiabank Corp
and two subsidiaries agreed to pay $11.69 million to resolve allegations they
submitted false claims for federal loan guarantees on mortgages, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday. Between
Jan. 1, 2005, and Dec. 31, 2014, the Lafayette, Louisiana-based bank and
its Iberiabank and Iberiabank Mortgage Co. units admitted to certifying
mortgage loans that did not meet Federal Housing Administration standards
and paid incentives to underwriters, which is prohibited, the department
said in a statement.
FHA announced it is reversing a short-lived policy
announced in July of 2016 and will no longer insure new mortgages on
properties that include Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE)
assessments.
Effective
Thursday, November 30, 2017, GHF
implemented changes from the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) via Circular 26-17-11 regarding the requirements for
itemizing seller credits on the CD. Seller credits on VA loans will now
be shown itemized in the seller paid column on the Closing
Disclosure.
GHF's
policy on 2018 loan limits are summarized as follows: Conventional
Conforming - eligible now and may fund immediately. VA - eligible for loans
closing on or after January 1, 2018. The new limits may be used now if
the loan is closed on or after January 1, 2018. FHA - eligible for
case numbers assigned on or after January 1, 2018. The new limits
may be used now if the case number is assigned on or after January 1,
2018. USDA - GHF's
maximum loan amount for USDA loans will increase to the new single family
conforming limit of $453,100 for USDA Conditional Commitments issued on
or after January 1, 2018. The new limits may be used now if the Conditional
Commitment is issued on or after January 1, 2018. The minimum loan amount
for non-conforming loan programs must exceed the FHFA loan
limits. The new minimum loan amount for non-conforming programs will
go into effect for all non-conforming loans locked or re-locked on or
after January 2, 2018.
GHF
is now accepting VA loans using VA's 2018 loan limits for loans that will
close on or after January 1, 2018. VA's 2018 Loan Limits are the
same as the Federal Housing Finance Agency's limits. For purposes of
determining the VA guaranty, the One-Unit Limit column in the FHFA Table
applies. If a loan is submitted now and closes on or after January
1, 2018, the new limits apply.
FormFree
has expanded its partnership with Envestnet | Yodlee, a data aggregation and data
analytics platform, to include new data insights from Yodlee's Risk
Insight Solutions. The data allows FormFree to enhance its AccountChek™
reports with bank statement copies that meet FHA requirements and
fine-tune its analysis of borrower ability-to-pay.
Capital markets
Resitrader
announced it has officially completed its full integration with Fannie
Mae's Pricing & Execution - Whole Loan (PE-Whole Loan) application
for pricing and committing whole loans. "The integration provides
Resitrader clients with the ability to obtain pricing across all
'specified pay-up' options, and then commit and manage commitments for
Fannie Mae loans through Resitrader's digital trading platform."
In terms of
interest rates, despite the possible volatility-causing employment data
Friday morning, not much happened. U.S. Treasuries and agency MBS prices
ended the week on a mostly flat note (the 10-year's range was only 3
basis points), showing a limited reaction to the November Employment
Situation report. The report exceeded headline expectations, but revealed
disappointing average hourly earnings growth (+0.2%). The employment data
stayed true to a longstanding trend and did not alter the market's
expectations for near-term policy changes. The December FOMC meeting will
take place this week and the market remains certain that a 25-basis point
rate hike will be announced on Wednesday.
So yes, the
unemployment data and other stats were on target, but wage growth remains
subdued. That isn't likely to keep the Fed from raising rates at this
month's meeting, yet it could give the Fed a data-based reason to move
more slowly on the next rate hike in 2018. Over the last 12 months,
average hourly earnings have risen 2.5%. If the housing market in your
area is going up 5-10% a year, and you want to buy, it's hard to do...
It's a new Fed
week, and let's see what's going on after the 10-year note closed
yielding 2.38% Friday. Yes, the U.S. central bank, via the FOMC, is
practically guaranteed to hike the range of fed funds by 25bp to 1.25% to
1.50%, with the ECB, BoE and SNB due with their latest decisions on
Thursday. In addition, Treasury will conduct their mini-Refunding over
today and Tuesday with the 3- and 10-year auctions both today.
This morning we
have October JOLTS job openings and the November Employment Trends Index,
as well as a $24 billion 3-year note auction and a $20 billion reopened
10-year note auctions. Tuesday is November NFIB Small Business Optimism,
November's Producer Price Index for a read on inflation, and a $12
billion 30-yr auction. Wednesday are the MBA's application data from last
week, November Consumer Price Index, and the December FOMC rate decision.
Thursday is November Retail Sales, Retail Sales, weekly Initial Claims,
November Import Prices ex-oil and November Export Prices ex-agriculture.
We wrap things up Friday with Empire Manufacturing, Industrial Production
and Capacity Utilization. The 10-year is currently at 2.36% and agency
MBS prices have improved nearly .125 from Friday's close.
A guy bought his
wife a beautiful diamond ring for Christmas.
A friend of his
said, "I thought she wanted one of those pretty 4-wheel drive
vehicles?"
"She
did," he replied, "But where in the world was I going to find a
fake Jeep!"
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