Tag Archives: FHA

Berkadia Commercial Mortgage has added three key executives to its ranks within the last few weeks. Industry veteran Luther Peacock has joined the company as chief risk officer. Stephannie Mower has been named managing director and will lead the company's newly launched Investment Client Services business. And Mortgage banker Mike Duggan has joined Berkadia's St. Louis office, which is the center of operations for its HUD and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) platform.

The U.S. government has filed a lawsuit against Deutsche Bank and its mortgage unit, claiming that Germany's largest bank ""repeatedly lied"" to get into a program to select mortgages to be insured by FHA against default. Once part of the program, U.S. authorities say Deutsche Bank ""recklessly"" selected mortgages that violated the program rules ""in blatant disregard"" of whether borrowers could make their mortgage payments. The U.S. government is seeking $1 billion in damages and penalties.

The new president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), former commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration, David H. Stevens started his tenure with the trade group with an announcement that he has appointed Marcia M. Davies as his chief of staff, effective immediately. Davies most recently worked at HUD, where she served as senior advisor to Stevens. She previously spent 21 years at Freddie Mac, where she held a variety of officer positions.

The National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday that sales of previously owned homes rose 3.7 percent last month, following the 9.6 drop recorded in February. The results were slightly better than forecast, but reaction was mixed after the release of the report. One economist says sales have now stabilized at a level no higher than that seen during the recession, and with so many forced foreclosed sales, a recovery is not even on the horizon. But another points out that it's distressed properties that are helping to elevate sales activity as investors line up for a bargain.

Distressed homes - typically REOs and short sales - accounted for 40 percent of the existing homes sold in March, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported Wednesday. The trade group notes that these properties generally sell at discounts in the vicinity of 20 percent. Their large market share served to dampen the median existing-home price. For all housing types, it came in at $159,600 in March, down 5.9 percent from March 2010. Overall, sales of previously owned homes rose 3.7 percent last month as the spring buying season began to take hold.

Ginnie Mae, which provides a guaranty on mortgage securities backed by Federal Housing Administration loans, has announced a new policy regarding the pooling of past-due loans. For single-family securities with an issue date of June 1, 2011, and after, servicers can no longer package loans that are delinquent by more than the monthly installment of principal and interest that is due on the issue date. This fall, the federal agency will also begin requiring issuers to supply new data elements, such as loan-to-value ratios and pre-modification qualities.

The budget resolution approved by Congress to keep the federal government running through September includes a package of cuts to federal agency budgets, one of which is HUD's Housing Counseling Program. In lawmakers' efforts to trim agency expenditures, $88 million slated to fund counseling efforts on foreclosure and reverse mortgages has been zeroed out. A HUD spokesperson described the curtailment as ""painful cuts,"" noting that the program provides grant funding to about 2,000 agencies across the country.

The Federal Housing Administration's Mortgagee Review Board has settled with Massachusetts mortgage lender First American Mortgage Trust (FAMT) for failing to verify whether borrowers could sustain mortgage payments prior to refinancing loans. FAMT agreed to pay $72,500, reimburse FHA for past insurance claims, and indemnify FHA's insurance fund for any claims to be paid on certain mortgages should they default within the next 60 months.

With bank-owned inventories expanding rapidly, even government agencies are looking for new ways to quickly get foreclosed properties back into the hands of responsible homeowners. For the first time in recent years, HUD is planning to sell over 150 foreclosed homes through auction. The auction will take place March 26th at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge in Phoenix, and will be conducted by the real estate auction firm Hudson & Marshall.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) announced Tuesday that John A. Courson, the organization's president and CEO, will be leaving the association, effective June 1, 2011. Courson will be replaced by David H. Stevens, the current commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Stevens announced last week that he would be resigning from his position at FHA. His departure from the federal agency is set for March 31. According to MBA, he will join the trade group in May.