News

San Francisco-based national wholesale and correspondent lender Parkside Lending has added industry veterans to the positions of general counsel, chief compliance officer, and closing manager to its team in order to manage the rapidly growing business.

As the MReport reported last week, credit is still tight for most borrowers, according to an April Urban Institute report. The report studied loan trends between 2009 and 2013, and found that mortgage credit is tighter than it was at the peak of the housing bubble in 2005 and 2006, as well as pre-housing crisis in 2011.

By 2013, the FHA‒‒the nation’s largest insurer of reverse mortgages‒‒received it’s first-ever bailout of $1.7 billion. At the same time, HECM defaults started to rise. By the middle of 2013, more than a half-million HECMs remained outstanding and the default rate hovered around 10 percent.

The Fed wants to permit interest payments on certain balances to be based on a daily rate, rather than on a maintenance period average rate, as it has existed for years. It is proposing to rewrite rules defining interest on reserve-balance (IORR) and interest on excessive-balance (IOER) rates.

While the CAC will advise the Fed on a broad range of issues and offer diverse perspectives on economic circumstances of different consumers and communities, the council's particular focus will be on concerns of low- and moderate-income areas.

In the latest Fannie Mae National Housing Survey, studying the mortgage shopping experience homebuyers navigate these days, the authors found that two-thirds of buyers‒‒particularly the young and those who’ve already bought homes‒‒obtain multiple mortgage quotes, though newbies to the process typically rely on friendly advice to find a suitable lender and terms.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of New York this week announced that it will partner with Atlanta-based mortgage clearing house Mortgage Asset Exchange (MAX Exchange) to launch a pilot program that will allow certain FHLBNY members to sell conforming and jumbo residential whole loan mortgages on an open exchange platform.

When asked what she was most proud of having accomplished with MHA, Lambert said, "There are so many things. If I had to pick one thing, I would say we're proud of the way we were able to put resources together to help homeowners and I’m proud I was able to participate in the direct assistance of homeowners in so many ways, including our PSA campaigns, online presence and outreach events.”

This week, First Horizon National Corp. announced that First Tennessee, the regional bank for First Horizon, reached an agreement with HUD and the U.S. Department of Justice to settle claims related the mortgage business the company sold in 2008. As part of the settlement, First Tennessee has committed to make a cash payment of $212.5 million.

Nomura and the Royal Bank of Scotland, also a defendant in the case, are the first two financial institutions out of 18 sued by the FHFA in 2011 that failed to reach a settlement and took the case to trial. FHFA sued the 18 institutions to recoup U.S. taxpayer costs following the government's $188 billion bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2008, after which the government seized control of both Enterprises.