Foreclosures don’t always follow script | via Seattle Times

Category: Mortgage Regulation

Posted on in Mortgage Regulation

Foreclosures don’t always follow script | via Seattle Times

Anyone who has purchased or refinanced a home has experienced the onslaught of paperwork at the closing table. Presumably, there is ample opportunity for lenders and researchers to correlate housing data with home owners. However as the Fed researcher in the article states, it’s quite difficult to get accurate and relevant research on foreclosures and delinquencies. “For those of us who want to understand how the foreclosure crisis has affected borrowers and communities, it is frustrating to not have access to publicly available data that can really help us to understand what happened and why,” said Carolina Reid, a research manager for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. via Local News | Foreclosures don’t always follow script | Seattle Times Newspaper. We will never implement the most appropriate and intelligent housing regulation until there is better measurement & analysis of housing data. It’s a giant lead ball attached to the leg of the housing industry and no one has […]

by jberman
Posted on in Mortgage Regulation

Reality Check – Are mortgage brokers the root cause of the housing crisis?

Much of the blame for the Subprime Housing Crisis has been disproportionately directed at Mortgage Brokers. As a mortgage broker/originator since 1993 and a member of a group that many blame for the housing crisis, my views are biased and probably a tad defensive. However, blaming mortgage brokers for the foreclosure problem is like blaming auto dealers for global warming. The only way to truly understand what caused the housing crisis is to break down the mortgage financing process and understand it’s complexities; both upon consumers and amongst the industry participants needed to get financing in place. The number of people, documents, & steps required to complete a transaction in order to obtain home financing makes the mortgage process one of the most complex transactions a consumer will face in their lifetime.  The process has remained difficult despite advances in technology. Increased workflow complexity is stifling production. As with anything not understood & studied, incorrect conclusions have been drawn about the […]

by jberman
Posted on in Mortgage Regulation

The HVCC Virus Spreads to FHA

Our good friends at IMMAAG reported today that FHA has enacted a similar appraisal management process to the much maligned & ill-conceived HVCC regulation that has added layers of complexity and cost to conventional (FNMA, FHLMC) mortgage financing. Excerpts from IMMAAG’s most recent alert: It is no secret that IMMAAG has opposed HVCC since the first time we had a chance to read the agreement and the code. We continue to share the belief with thousands of others who now know – HVCC was a poorly conceived, misdirected, inappropriate response to circumstances that were not the result of the causes identified by the New York Attorney General. For months, IMMAAG has joined others in the industry in advocating grass roots action to tell Congress about the real problems caused by this policy. We have been suggesting to everyone with whom we communicate to ask their congressional representatives to co-sponsor H.R. 3044, the moratorium bill. During all of this, there have […]

by jberman
Posted on in Mortgage Regulation

Colorado Division of Real Estate establishes rule clarification to comply with S.A.F.E.

The Colorado Division of Real Estate is getting it’s regulations in shape for the S.A.F.E. Mortgage Licensing Act (passed in 2008). One of the requirements of the S.A.F.E. Act is an annual renewal process for mortgage originators. Currently, Colorado has a three year renewal process, so the Division proposed a License Cycle Transition Process to get state and federal requirements in sync. Here is the substantive portion of the new rule clarification: 1. All licenses set to expire at any point in 2009 will be administratively set to expire on December 31, 2009. The Division of Real Estate will change the expiration dates for this group of affected licenses on October 1, 2009. 2. All licenses set to expire at any point on or after January 1, 2010, will be administratively set to expire on December 31, 2010. The Division of Real Estate will change the expiration dates for this group of affected licenses towards the end of 2009. The […]

by jberman
Posted on in Mortgage Regulation

Bad for Consumers: The Mortgage Improvement & Regulation ACT of 2009 (MIRA)

Just when you thought that nothing more could be done to add to the confusion, noise, and attacks on the independent mortgage lender/brokers along comes the Mortgage Bankers Association offering of draft legislation veiled in the promise of national standards to protect consumers. Unfortunately, it appears that the real purpose is the MBA’s continuing effort to support additional controls on the independent mortgage lenders and mortgage brokers and hold them to a different set of standards than the MBA’s primary constituents – the federal depositories. The proposed legislation, The Mortgage Improvement and Regulation Act of 2009 actually offers tremendous opportunity for consumer and industry confusion in spite of its “mom and apple pie” objective to create national standards. This legislation, if enacted, references and brings back many of the negative provisions of HR-3915, it adds conflicting definitions for things such as qualified mortgage and high interest loans, and it generally promotes the control of independent mortgage entities in the name of consumer protection. In its 20+ pages: Yield spread is […]

by jberman
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