Category: Top National News

National Mortgage Professional, Jan. 12, 2018–Phil HallAccording to the senators, the new bill is designed to address the issue of “churning,” a process that results in repeated home loan refinancing that generates fees and profits for lenders at the direct expense of veterans and their families, often without their knowledge.

UExpress, Jan. 12, 2018–Lew SichelmanGinnie Mae–which packages government loans into securities for sale to investors in much the same way Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do with conventional loans–said it had restricted how often a lender is permitted to place a mortgage to the same borrower whose initial mortgage is in a Ginnie Mae loan bond.

Reverse Mortgage Daily, Jan. 15, 2018–Alex SpankoCount Carol Galante among the growing chorus of housing experts who believe the federally backed reverse mortgage program should be separate from the Federal Housing Administration’s other loans.

Associated Press, Jan. 11, 2018The bill’s sponsors–Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.–said Thursday the goal is to protect veterans, particularly those who purchase homes through a U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs home loan program.

Huffington Post, Jan. 11, 2018–Jack GuttentagOne intriguing approach has been suggested by Wayne Passmore and Alexander H. von Haften, economists at the Federal Reserve Board. Their central idea for encouraging more rapid equity growth is to trade off the borrower’s right to refinance when interest rates fall, which imposes a heavy cost on lenders, for larger principal payments.

National Mortgage News, Jan. 11, 2018–Brian Collins (subscription)Adolfo Marzol, a top official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is optimistic that technological improvements and other changes can help draw Federal Housing Administration lenders back to the fold.

Mortgage Orb, Jan. 10,2018–Mark CollinsMortgage servicers have set up a very complicated system that attempts to get taxes paid on time and allows them time to perform research on exceptions. This fragile system of timing tax payments has now collided with the new tax laws introduced just before the end of 2017, which threw a wrinkle into this already delicate framework.

National Mortgage News, Jan. 10, 2018–John Heltman (subscription)The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s recent freeze on collecting any personally identifiable information from companies it supervises is slowing investigations and could ultimately cripple the agency’s enforcement function–and that may be the point, according to former agency and law enforcement officials.

HousingWire, Jan. 10, 2018–Ben Lane Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., introduced a bill that would increase oversight of credit reporting agencies and allow the government to impose financial penalties on the agencies for failing to secure consumer data.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jan. 10, 2018–Cary SpivakAlishia Evans, the Milwaukee woman who was conned by a bogus landlord and then bounced by police from the home she thought she would be renting, is receiving a financial settlement from Freddie Mac, the giant mortgage agency that owned the house.