Oct. 11, 2012: Mortgage jobs; H&R Block bank on the block due to Dodd Frank; Fitch doesn't like Ocwen deal; a classic joke
Rob Chrisman
Welcome
to 10/11/12...how many times do us adults get a chance at a
date like that here in the U.S.? I guess once a year up until
2014.
On the job front, Dallas’ Caliber Funding LLC is looking
to hire all operations roles in Wholesale Centers located in
Southern and Northern California, Chicago, Fairfax
(Virginia), Tampa, and Dallas. Caliber is a national
mortgage lender and agency direct seller/servicer whose core
business focus includes Retail, Wholesale, Mini-Correspondent,
and Consumer Direct channels. It is aggressively growing
nationwide. “Caliber Funding’s strengths include an innovative
culture, proprietary loan origination system H2Online, and
entrepreneurial management team,” and it has the financial
backing of Lone Star Funds, a global private equity fund.
Confidential resumes should be sent to recruiting@caliberfunding.com.
Please
also visit its “Careers Page” on the company website at www.caliberfunding.com.
Down
in California, in the Northern Bay Area, I have been
retained by a well-known organization in its search for a
Secondary Marketing Analyst. “This position is
responsible for monitoring the Company’s conforming mortgage
loan pipeline. The ideal candidate should have applicable
secondary mortgage market experience, well-versed knowledge of
all conforming loan products, have strong analytic and
quantitative skills and a background in pricing, pooling and
delivering loans to the GSEs. The individual is expected to
contribute to the improvement of our hedging and risk
management processes. Strong attention to detail and process,
clear communication skills, and outstanding client service are
key factors.” I highly recommend this company – write for the
complete description. And/or send a confidential resume to me
at rchrisman@robchrisman.com.
(I am in Seattle for the day, please expect some delays in
responding.)
Here’s
a little potential underwriter alert: Equifax sent out a
Compliance Bulletin saying “FHA insurance to require check
for IRS tax debts.” “The FHA appears ready to
institute a policy that would require lenders to identify
delinquent tax debtors before endorsing a loan for FHA
mortgage insurance. The change is in the works after
the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that
many first time home buyers with delinquent tax debts had been
granted FHA insurance in violation of FHA policy. Federal
policy makes delinquent tax debtors ineligible for FHA
mortgage insurance unless they repay their debt or are in a
valid repayment agreement with the IRS.” The bulletin went on
to note, “GAO also noted that two of three lenders mistakenly
believed they can check for federal tax debts by using the
FHA’s Credit Alert Interactive Voice Response System (CAIVRS),
a database of delinquent federal debtors. CAIVRS covers debts
from six federal agencies, but does not include IRS debts. GAO
noted that lenders only need the borrower to provide approval
for them to receive this information directly from the IRS. As
a best practice, some lenders are checking for federal tax
debts at both the time of loan origination and again at
closing to ensure that the most accurate account status is
known. The most common sources for tax debt information relied
on in the past, credit reports and the loan application
itself, don’t measure up, in the GAO’s view. The GAO report
noted that the tax liens that appear on credit reports miss
tax debtors because the IRS doesn’t file liens on all tax
debtors. In addition, GAO noted, FHA borrowers are first time
home buyers and may not have real property on which IRS can
place a lien. Indeed GAO said that of eight selected borrowers
it studied in detail who had disqualifying tax debts, only two
had tax liens. As a result, GAO made two policy
recommendations: (1) require lenders to collect IRS
documentation for identifying unpaid federal tax and (2)
clarify the requirement that lenders investigate indications
of tax debt.” Per Equifax, HUD has agreed with the
recommendations.
Organizations
involved in lending, real estate, title, you name it, are
concerned with the vast reach of the CFPB – how much is too
much? As an example, the Community Mortgage Lenders of
America (CMLA) announced it has reached 100 members
strong committed to preserving and strengthening the role of
the community mortgage banker and lender. CMLA also announced
the formation of a Legislative Task Force to help
streamline the regulatory burden of local lenders in order
to improve consumer access to credit while not undermining
the intent of the Dodd-Frank Act. The CMLA will present
legislative ideas to Congress to help with economic recovery,
create jobs, and prevent additional concentration amongst the
largest banks and mortgage lenders in the US. ‘The CMLA
appreciates the intent of the Dodd-Frank Act that created the
CFPB to prohibit predatory and abusive lending practices and
to improve transparency in the lending markets,’ said Mark
McDougald of Firstrust Mortgage in Overland Park, KS and Chair
of the CMLA. ‘While we agree consumers need regulatory
protection, we remain deeply concerned about the far-reaching
impacts of several of the proposed rules and the heightened
pace of regulatory burden applied through the CFPB. If left
unchecked, the overall costs to comply with the additional
burden will significantly and disproportionately disadvantage
small, community-based lenders that did not create the
meltdown, and frankly don’t have the resources to hire a large
staff, and pay lawyers, to ensure compliance with rules aimed
at larger institutions.’” If you’d like more info on the CMLA,
contact Kevin Cuff at kmcuff@thecmla.com.
How ‘bout some relatively recent news on the M&A
front, investors, and vendors? These will give you a
sense of recent trends, but for full details read the actual
bulletin.
Bank mergers continue unabated as efficiency, and being
bigger, trump individuality. In Ohio LCNB ($827mm) will
buy Citizens National Bank of Chillicothe ($152mm) for $19.6mm
in cash & stock, and down in Missouri First State
Community Bank ($1.3B) will buy Bank Star of the Leadbelt
($116mm) for an undisclosed sum. Lastly, in South Dakota,
American Bank ($385mm) will buy Mansfield State Bank for an
undisclosed sum.
Freedom Mortgage has announced that it will accept
appraisals prepared by an appraiser for Wells Fargo when it
can determine that the transferred appraisal conforms to its
appraisal standards and when provided with written assurances
that Wells has met the Appraiser independence Requirements.
In order for such an appraisal transfer to take place, FMC
requires the written assurance to be signed by a Wells officer
and submitted to a Regional Underwriting Manager, who must run
an AVM to ensure that the appraisal complies with FMC
guidelines. These requirements are effective immediately.
MSI has updated guidance to state that Borrower Paid
Compensation may not exceed the value of the Lender Paid
Compensation plan currently in effect. This applies to all
loans locked on or after September 21st.
Beginning on October 20th, MSI will require all new Fannie
loans to be submitted to DU using Version 9.0, regardless of
the application or lock date. Loans originally submitted
using Version 8.3 may be resubmitted using the earlier version
provided that the DU finding hasn’t expired, and loans that
fail to close before March 20, 2013 must be resubmitted
through Version 9.0 whether the DU findings have expired or
not.
MSI will no longer accept Appraisal Forms 2055 or 2075 for LP
loans locked or relocked on or after October 15th, regardless
of LP AUS. MSI has changed the minimum FICO score for
Purchase/Limited Cash-Out Owner transactions at 95% LTV and
Occupied Cash-Out Refinance 1-Unit transactions at 85% to
640. Note that this does not apply in Arizona and Nevada,
where a FICO score of 680 is required for LTVs over 80%.
Carrington Mortgage rolled out its HomePath products,
which will allow borrowers to purchase Fannie-owned properties
with a low down payment and without the need for a
lender-requested appraisal or mortgage insurance. The program
also allows flexible mortgage terms and expanded seller
contributions for closing costs, and for condo projects, many
of the usual product requirements don’t apply. HomePath loans
will be available for primary residences, secondary
residences, and investment properties. And Pro Teck
Valuation Services has been added to the appraisal
options available to Carrington clients.
On Wednesday we saw some rate sheet changes in the afternoon.
Much of this was attributed to a decent 10-yr auction, and
some pointed to the Fed’s Beige Book report. The Beige Book
was a bit of déjà vu, as the “gradual expansion” noted in the
last report was repackaged as modest expansion over the second
half of Q3. Most areas cited general economic expansion, with
the exception of The New York and Kansas City Districts, which
respectively cited flat and
slowing activity. From the mortgage originator perspective
Wednesday saw a little less supply than on Tuesday, and
investors, for whatever reason, decided to pick up the buying
a little. Jabber on all you want, with the Fed's
additional buying of $40 billion per month in Agency MBS,
mortgage rates should do just fine.
As
Thomson Reuters pointed out, “One sector that was a brighter
spot in the Beige Book, however, was housing with the
following observed: residential real estate showed widespread
improvement since the last report, all twelve districts
reported that existing home sales strengthened, in some cases
substantially, and selling prices were steady or rising. Most
Districts reported an increase in mortgage lending, especially
for refinancing purposes.”
When the dust had settled, prices on 30-year FNMA MBS
gained/improved nearly .250 from Tuesday’s close, and the
10-yr saw the same price move and closed at a yield of 1.69%.
It is too early to know quite where the market is (I am
heading to the airport for a flight to Seattle) but today
we’ll have Initial Jobless Claims (called slightly higher to
370k from 367k), Import Prices (expected unchanged),
International Trade for August, and a $13 billion 30-yr
auction at 10AM PST.
It is late fall and the Indians on a remote reservation in
South Dakota asked their new chief if the coming winter was
going to be cold or mild.
Since he was a chief in a modern society, he had never been
taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn't
tell what the winter was going to be like.
Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that
the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of
the village should collect firewood to be prepared.
But, being a practical leader, after several days, he got an
idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather
Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"
"It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold," the
meteorologist at the weather service responded.
So the chief went back to his people and told them to collect
even more firewood in order to be prepared.
A week later, he called the National Weather Service again.
"Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold
winter?"
"Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied,
"it's going to be a very cold winter."
The chief again went back to his people and ordered them to
collect every scrap of firewood they could find.
Two weeks later, the chief called the National Weather Service
again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be
very cold?"
"Absolutely," the man replied. "It's looking more and more
like it is going to be one of the coldest winters we've ever
seen."
"How can you be so sure?" the chief asked.
The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting crazy
amounts of firewood."
If
you're interested, visit my twice-a-month blog at the STRATMOR
Group web site located at www.stratmorgroup.com.
The current blog discusses the looming fiscal cliff brought on
by Washington DC. If you have both the time and
inclination, make a comment on what I have written, or on
other comments so that folks can learn what's going on out
there from the other readers.
