- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) new Know Before you Owe mortgage disclosure rule went into effect this week. The new rule was implemented as a reform under Dodd-Frank. Borrowers now have to be allowed three days to consider a mortgage loan, under certain circumstances, and Lenders are required to make a number of disclosures via forms mandated under the Truth in Lending Act. The CFPB has released this video to explain the new rule.
- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) continues its recent flurry of grant making activity by awarding $138 Million to over 100 groups to fight housing discrimination. The grants were made under the auspices of the Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP). The awardees will use the funds to support education, outreach, investigations and capacity building.
Tag Archives: mortgage finance
Friday’s Government Reports
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Monthly Complaint Snapshot focuses on consumer complaints related to mortgages. The CFPB found that consumers have particular difficulty with mortgage servicing – especially when applying for loan modifications to avoid foreclosure. The report also takes a close look at compliants coming out of the Denver, CO area.
- The U.S. Treasury has announced $327 million in CDFI Bond Fund Gaurantees, which were awarded to CDFI’s to issue bonds, the funds of which are intended to be used to finance projects in low income communities. Among the initiatives guaranteed include senior and long term care development in latino communities and residential and commercial development in Native American communities.
Tuesday’s Regulatory & Legislative Round-Up
- The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is seeking public comment on its revised system of records for the National Mortgage Database Project. The FHFA collects information on all outstanding U.S. mortgages in keeping with its mandate to ensure the creditworthiness of borrowers. Mortgages remain in the NMDB until they terminate through prepayment (including refinancing), foreclosure or maturity. Information from credit repository files on each borrower associated with the mortgages in the NMDB will be collected from one year prior to origination to one year after termination of the mortgage.
Friday’s Government Reports
- The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has reported an uptick in mortgage rates from June to July 2015. This is according to the Monthly Interest Rate Survey (MIRS), which measures several indices of new mortgage contracts to arrive at a national average. July’s average was 4.02% up 17 basis points from June’s 3.8%.
- The FHFA has also released its second quarter Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) refinance results. According to the report refinances remained unchanged between the first and second quarters of 2015, 31,561 borrowers refinanced with HARP funds, which represented 5% of all U.S. refinances. HARP was established in 2009 in order to assist homeowners unable to refinance because of a decline in their home value. As of March the FHFA estimated that there were over 500,000 borrowers eligible for the HARP program.
- Also according to the FHFA house prices rose 1.2% from the first to the second quarter (Q2) of 2015 and are up more that 5% over Q2 201. This is according FHFA’s House Price Index (HPI) which has been up for the last 16 consecutive quarters.
Wednesday’s Academic Roundup
- On the Cyclicity of Regional House Prices: New Evidence for U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Michael André Flor & Torben Klarl, CESifo Working Paper Series No. 5471.
- How Mortgage Finance Affects the Urban Landscape, Sewin Chan, Andrew Haughwout & Joseph S. Tracy, FRB of New York Working Paper No. FEDNSR713.
- House-Price Expectations, Alternative Mortgage Products, and Default, Jan K. Brueckner, Paul S. Calem & Leondard I. Nakamura, FRB of Philadelphia Working Paper No. FEDPWP15-1.
- A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Judicial Foreclosure Delay and a Preliminary Look at New Mortgage Servicing Rules, Lawrence R. Cordell & Lauren Lambie-Hanson, FRB of Philadelphia Working Paper No. FEDPWP15-14.
- Sharing Property, Kellen Zale, University of Colorado Law Review (Forthcoming); U of Houston Law Center No. 2015-A-16.
- [Re]Integrating Community Space: The Legal and Social Meanings of Reclaiming Abandoned Space in New York’s Lower East Side, Andrea L. McArdle, 2 Savannah Law Review 247 (2015).
- Bankruptcy Weapons to Terminate a Zombie Mortgage, Andrea J. Boyack & Robert Berger, Washburn Law Journal, Vol. 54, No. 3, 2015.
Tuesday’s Regulatory & Legislative Round-Up
- Fannie Mae announced HomeReady – a new affordable lending product which will be rolled out later in the year. The program includes features designed to make it more flexible for lenders and buyers alike. For lenders Desktop Underwriter (DU) allows lenders to make credit risk, eligibility and loan availability assessment in one tool. HomeReady loans also promise simplified execution due to the ability to commingle them with standard loans into Mortgaged Backed Security polls. Purchasers are able to put as little as 3% down, and are able to use rental income from the property and non-borrower household income to meet the requirements.
Wednesday’s Academic Roundup
- Mortgage Finance and Technological Change, Robin Döttling & Enrico C. Perotti, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper 15-079/IV.
- Sustaining Neighborhoods of Choice: From Land Bank(ing) to Land Trust(ing), James J. Kelly Jr., Washburn Law Journal, Vol. 54, No. 3, 2015.
- President Eisenhower’s 1956 Prediction Becomes a Reality: The New Art of the REIT Spin, Katherine Riano, May 29, 2015.
- A Tale of Two Tensions: Balancing Access to Credit and Credit Risk in Mortgage Underwriting, Marsha Courchane, Leonard C. Kiefer & Peter M. Zorn, Real Estate Economics, Forthcoming.
- Loan Originations and Defaults in the Mortgage Crisis: Further Evidence, Manuel Adelino, Antoinette Schoar & Felipe Severino, June 21, 2015.
- How to Kill a Zombie: Strategies for Dealing with the Aftermath of the Foreclosure Crisis, Judith L. Fox, Notre Dame Legal Studies Paper No. 1519.
