Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation, one of the country’s largest mortgage bankers, has announced that it is entering the wholesale market with select banks, credit unions and brokers. The company will build a national wholesale platform by leveraging its expertise in Federal Housing Administration (FHA), agency and USDA lending and the seasoned management and staff it has assembled.Read more

According to a report issued today by the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group, increased use of loan modifications resulting in significant payment reduction has succeeded in creating more sustainable loan modifications. The number of foreclosures continues to outpace the number of loan modifications being made, but there are reasons to be optimistic about the improvement in loan modification performance. The State Working Group’s data indicate that some recent modifications are performing better than loan modifications made earlier in the mortgage crisis.Read more

Testifying before Congress, Mortgage Insurance Companies of America (MICA) pledged to play a critical role in the future of housing finance by continuing to enable first-time and lower income families to purchase homes safely and soundly. Testifying on behalf of MICA was Patrick Sinks, president and chief operating officer of Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation in Milwaukee, Wisc.Read more

Yes, we as taxpayers did lose hundreds of billions of dollars recently due to the mortgage crisis. This is the second time that this has happened during my career as a mortgage professional.Read more

United Law Group has filed a complaint in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Santa Clara, against Bank of America and its subsidiary, Countrywide Home Loans, for breaches of contractual obligations, violation of the Restatement (Second) of Contracts Section 205, emotional distress, and violation of California Business and Professions Code Section 17200. This case states that though John Wright qualified for a mortgage modification under the federal Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), he was denied access to the government-sponsored plan.Read more

Ocwen Financial Corporation President Ronald M. Faris, has testified before Congress, voicing the mortgage servicer's support of the Obama Administration's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) and recommended enhancements that Ocwen believes would make the program more effective at preventing foreclosures and helping distressed homeowners.Read more

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) moved to protect distressed homeowners from the promoters of bogus foreclosure rescue and mortgage modification services by proposing a new rule that would forbid companies to charge upfront for these services. Instead, companies could only collect payment after providing services.Read more

Many exotic adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) will recast in 2010, leading to a mortgage crisis as large as sub-prime in the New Year, according to the Consumer Mortgage Audit Center. “We’ve spoken to Florida attorneys who sit at the forefront of the U.S. foreclosure crisis and have learned that 53 percent expect recasting ARMs to present a mortgage crisis as large as sub-prime and 61 percent expect to work on more loan modifications in 2010 than they did in 2009,” said Sylvia Alayon, vice president of operations for the Consumer Mortgage Audit Center.Read more

Amidst all of the discussion of the mortgage crisis and the implementation of the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC), there has been lots of finger pointing, concerning who was at fault for the meltdown and what should and should not be done to fix the problem(s). Unless you have been in seclusion for the past year, you have heard of the attempts of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to keep appraisers separated from loan originators.Read more

The Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) is on the way and its gestation stage will not be as long as many expect.¹ Although its nascence will endure the inevitable crucible of politics churned out by the Congress, federal and state regulatory bodies, bank and non-bank industry lobbyists, and eminent legal scholars,² the actors in this drama seem to argue, at one extreme, for a CFPA with robust oversight and regulatory enforcement authorities, and, at the other extreme, some kind of oversight agency that reviRead more