News

A federal judge has ruled to allow the Delaware and New York attorneys general to pursue litigation in Bank of America's $8.5 billion settlement with mortgage investors. Bank of America reached the settlement agreement in June with Bank of New York Mellon, the trustee for the 530 mortgage-backed securities trusts in question. But the judge has ruled that there's more at stake than the financial interests of the few major investors involved in the settlement negotiations.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a report Tuesday on actions taken to correct deficiencies in mortgage servicing and foreclosure processing by the 12 institutions it oversees. The OCC has made public the names of the independent consultants retained for foreclosure reviews, and notes that evaluations of certain cases and mailings to more than 4 million borrowers are underway. The agency says all servicers have instituted policies to end dual-tracking and provide borrowers with a single point of contact.

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee introduced legislation in early November aiming to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the next 10 years and replace the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) with a new government-run registry. According to the ratings agency DBRS, Corker's proposal could give the private market for mortgage securitizations a much needed boost, and the creation of a new MERS database could ease investor concerns over the legal battles facing the original system.

Did policies in place at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac help fuel foreclosure abuses such as robo-signing? That's the question posed by Rep. Elijah Cummings to the GSEs' regulator. As ranking member of a House oversight committee, the nation's housing crisis has been a central focus of Cummings' work. He says documents show FHFA directed the GSEs to fine servicers $150 million in 2010 for not processing foreclosures fast enough, even though an internal report concluded servicers were overloaded and documentation problems were evident.

The Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) announced Monday that it intervened to block 40 mortgage modification schemes advertised on Yahoo! and Bing. In response, Microsoft terminated 400 advertising contracts with the perpetrators of the schemes. Microsoft is the founder of Bing, and its technology backs Yahoo! Search. Monday's notice follows an announcement last week in which SIGTARP reportedly shut down 85 mortgage modification scams advertised on Google.

This year's tally of failed banks rose to 90 over the weekend, as state and federal regulators stepped in to close the doors on two more community-based lenders in Iowa and Louisiana. Polk County Bank has been acquired by Grinnell State Bank in Iowa, and Louisiana's Central Progressive Bank is now part of First NBC Bank. Together the two closings are expected to cost the FDIC more than $70 million.

The third quarter of 2011 saw a net increase of 2,738 mortgage-related jobs, according to recent industry data. This increase is the first recorded in five quarters. The recent increase in refinances encouraged by remarkably low interest rates sparked a demand for loan originators and processors, while continuing high levels of delinquencies and foreclosures bolstered the need for servicing staff. The 2,738 gain compares to a net loss of 464 jobs in the previous quarter and a loss of 936 jobs a year ago.

First Guaranty Mortgage Corp. (FGMC), signaling that it will become more aggressive in the capital markets channel, has added Mark Mayhook as managing director, capital markets. FGMC is a national mortgage lending firm offering retail, wholesale, and correspondent mortgage solutions to clients of varying income and credit types as well as financial institutions of all kinds.

Sales of previously owned homes got an unexpected boost last month while the number of homes on the market continued to decline, according to data released Monday by the National Association of Realtors. The trade group recorded a 1.4 percent month-over-month increase and a 13.5 percent year-over-year increase for existing-home sales in October. At the same time, housing inventory fell 2.2 percent to 3.33 million existing homes available for sale, which represents an 8.0-month supply. Distressed homes made up 28 percent of October's transactions.

Lawmakers voted late Thursday to increase the ceiling for loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Included in a ""minibus"" spending bill passed by both the House and Senate was an amendment to restore the FHA loan limit to $729,750 in high cost areas. The maximum loan limit was lowered from that amount to $625,500 on October 1st for government housing agencies, including FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. The loan limits for Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-backed mortgages were not raised with the newly passed measure.