Tommy's Blog

This past week in New Orleans was a very productive week for those mortgage banking professionals who work in the quality control or quality assurance space.  “The Week of Quality” included: the Mortgage Banking Operations Conference, Fannie Mae’s QC Vendor Summit, and the Mortgage Bankers Residential Underwriting and Quality Assurance Conference.  Those who attended walked away with a wealth of information to take their organization   [more...]

Providing additional challenges and demands to the mortgage industry of late is word on the street that Banks in the U.S. are finding themselves overwhelmed by a refinancing boom as a result of historically low interest rates. 

 It appears the lending logjam is a result of the banks firing thousands of experienced mortgage workers between November 2010 and February 2011.  It seems that now they find   [more...]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency filed suit last week against a dozen or so of the largest banks in America contending that the banks misrepresented the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the height of the housing bubble.  The suit is seeking upwards of $30 billion dollars back from such banking institutions as Bank of America, JP   [more...]

The signs are all around regardless of what the national news economist and analyst are saying about the U.S. economy.  The mortgage industry is on the rebound for a number of reasons and the economic outlook will change.  A couple of years ago at the bottom of the mortgage crisis I wrote about my opinion on what it will take for the housing market to   [more...]

In mortgage lending, we appear to have come full circle, where buying and borrowing for a home is actually a privilege, not a right. Is the public aware? Do the Realtors care? Are the loan officers prepared for the changes? 

Licensing requirements and regulations point in that direction, and yet, we are still faced with the ever present: “but is this a good deal?”  We all   [more...]

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs held a hearing on recently addressing the mortgage servicing titled, “Housing Finance Reform: National Mortgage Servicing Standards.”

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson (D-SD) said in his opening comments, “The housing recovery appears to have stalled in part because of widespread uncertainty in mortgage servicing.”  “Borrowers aren’t certain that servicers are accurately evaluating them for modifications.  Servicers   [more...]

Quality Mortgage Services (QMS), a provider of mortgage quality assurance and mortgage compliance solutions nationwide, announced today that its federal regulatory and custom foreclosure audit services fulfill the requirements for foreclosure audits as outlined by the Office of the Comptroller of Currency.

 More than two million homeowners hit with foreclosure in 2009 and 2010 will receive letters explaining their right to an independent audit review   [more...]

 Since 2009 the FHA has taken 2,300-plus administrative actions against lenders and is showing no signs of slowing down. The agency took action against 1,600 lenders in 2010. The numbers for 2011 have not yet been released, however, we can expect higher numbers of administrative prosecuting actions against lenders this year because of the new mortgagee monitoring responsibility pushed down to sponsoring lenders of Sponsored   [more...]

Quality Mortgage Services (QMS), a provider of mortgage quality assurance and mortgage compliance solutions, reported today that attempts by some lenders to leverage fully automated QC software to meet compliance demands in the current environment will result in high risk of failure. The company’s position is based on a recently performed study of mortgage loan audits that revealed many serious compliance problems that cannot be   [more...]

If you have not noticed lately, there are a lot of lawsuits happening between government agencies that have oversight of big volume mortgage producers.  Basically, mortgage bankers are being sued because of selling lemon loans.  You know the type, those loans that break down, don’t work anymore and are high maintenance.  Perhaps Consumer Reports need to feature mortgage lenders in their product survey? 

UBS and the   [more...]

Freddie Mac is starting a new servicing service to Servicers called Servicing Success Program.  The intent and purpose is to find robust and balance in its approach to setting mortgage servicing performance expectations by providing feedback on servicer’s strength and weakness.  Freddie Mac will do this by promoting a feedback to servicers on how to improve portfolio performance in order to preserve homeownership. The Servicing   [more...]

You may have seen the news today that the Federal Reserve rejects some banks attempt to use the same law firms that were used in the foreclosure process for auditing their internal process for foreclosures. I must applaud the Federal Reserve for this.

I do not think the law firms involved in the foreclosure process at the 14 banks that were targeted by an interagency   [more...]

On April 2011, an interagency audit report was published called, Interagency Review of Foreclosure Policies and Practices. This collective audit was performed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Office of Comptroller of Currency (OCC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). They conducted on-site reviews for foreclosure processing at 14 federally regulated mortgage servicers during fourth quarter 2010. This report provides an overview of   [more...]

I saw a disturbing advertisement on the Internet today. After some careful thought, I feel the need to discuss it.

If no one is going to call it as it is, then, I will. Dude… you are committing internet fraud or unethical behavior. Shame on you for
telling everyone to hurry up and cheat Facebook before Facebook finds   [more...]

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., Kay Hagan, D-N.C., and Mary Landrieu, D-La., and U.S. Congressmen John Campbell, R-Calif., and Brad Sherman, D-Calif., will host a news conference on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 to call on federal regulators to revise their proposed 20 percent down payment requirement for Qualified Residential Mortgages. The lawmakers will reiterate that the proposed rule would shut out responsible homebuyers and   [more...]

As covered in an earlier article, HUD is planning, barring Congressional action, to lower loan limits in over 3,000 areas nationwide. 

They and the GSEs are reminding investors everywhere that come October 1, 2011 “the current Conforming Plus and FHA maximum mortgage limits apply to loans closed within the government’s current fiscal year which ends on September 30, 2011. Loans that are closed with a Note   [more...]

For those of you in our industry that has not cared or really has not been paying attention, I am going to fill in some of the details regarding the Qualified Residential Mortgage (QRM) provisions that I touched on in my last article. 

While lobbying efforts continue, it is critical that you voice your opinion with the Fed at: 

http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/foia/proposedregs.cfm 

In recent news, more than 163 Congressmen have   [more...]

The last couple of days have spawned several interesting articles regarding the housing recovery that sheds some light on what the American public is thinking and, as a result of their perception, what we might expect in the remainder of this year and in election year 2012. 

Trulia and Realty Trac recently conducted a survey of 2,018 American adults and have come up with some very   [more...]

Those of you lending in “higher loan amount areas” of the nation should pay particular attention to this part of my article: 

“Barring Congressional action, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan limits will revert back to loan limits determined under the Housing and Economic recovery Act (HERA) for loans insured by FHA on or after October 1, 2011. As a result, FHA loan limits will more   [more...]