Lender Fee and Pricing Changes; CFPB Suit Dismissed, HMDA webinar

What should lenders and loan officers be concerned about? What’s threatening their livelihood, besides all cash buyers, venture capital firms buying houses for rentals, and Baby Boomers staying put with their 3.5% 30-year mortgages? How about www.MyMortgageAuction.com? Lenders bid on borrower's deals. Or how about ResMac's home loan automation tool Lendgenuity.com, labeled a "do it yourself" mortgage? "Eliminating the commissioned sales process and passing that savings on to the consumer, allows us to offer rates and programs well below industry averages..."

Fee and Pricing Changes

Pacific Union's SRP Schedules will be updated on Monday, July 24th.

Effective immediately, Mortgage Works AMC will be adding an additional $100 onto the base appraisal fees for properties located in the following counties: Alameda, Calaveras, Contra Costa, Kern, Lake, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma. View MWF's updated Appraisal Fees, link, also posted on its website under the "Fees" Section.

Effective immediately, NewLeaf must pull an independent Credit Report for all applicants in to re-issue credit through GUS. It must ensure that an additional Credit Report fee(s) of $25 (individual) / $50 (joint) is disclosed properly to the Borrower(s). The Borrower(s) must be charged the lesser of the disclosed amount of $25 (individual) / $50 (joint) or the actual cost of the Credit Report, payable to NewLeaf Wholesale.

Effective with new loan applications dated on or after July 2, 2017, fees charged to the Veteran must be listed in the "Borrower Paid" column of the CD. Seller credits must be entered in the "Seller Paid" column. Lender credits are to be listed in the "Paid by Others" column. Borrower closing costs, paid for by either the seller or lender should be placed in either the "seller paid" or "paid by others" column as appropriate. A separate addendum list will not be permitted. M&T will audit all close loan packages for compliance.

Announcement from PennyMac explains its update to Principal Balance Purchased - Payment Amortization Policy.

Pacific Union announced that the price cap on its FlexKey product has been increased to a 102.000 price.

For new best efforts rate locks and mandatory commitments established on or after July 3, 2017, three of Citi Correspondent Lending's state geographic pricing adjusters changed. These changes apply to 30-year fixed conventional conforming and agency jumbo products. IA: 00, NE: .10 and WI: .10.

Effective for locks on or after 07.10.17, the NYCB Mortgage Banking loan level price adjustment (LLPA) for Conforming Fixed High Balance transactions will increase as follows: LLPA for All States (except for California) from -0.875 to -1.000 and LLPA for California from -1.125 to -1.250.

Franklin American Mortgage Company has added to its Conventional High Balance ARM LLPA. LTV/CLTV <=75% is -0.75. LTV/CLTV >75%<=90% is -1.5.

CFPB and Regulatory Trends

The time is right to reexamine financial regulations to ensure they are working efficiently, says SIFMA President and CEO Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr. "We're at an appropriate time of stability and capital strength where we can go back and say, are these rules doing what we want them to?" he says.

A lawsuit filed by the CFPB was dismissed last week. Borders & Borders, a Kentucky based title insurance agency, effectively won its lawsuit against the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau over the Bureau's interpretation of RESPA Section 8's affiliated business provisions. Borders & Borders operated joint ventures with local real estate and mortgage broker companies disclosing the arrangement under safe harbor regulations and splitting responsibility and profit evenly among the owners.

Don't forget that on July 14, the CFPB issued a request for comments on proposed amendments to its HMDA reporting threshold for calendar years 2018 and 2019 to ease the burden on small-volume lenders. The comment period ends July 31, 2017. Unfortunately, CFPB has not published a final rule on some outstanding issues or given the industry the parameters of what data is subject to public disclosure under the rule.

HMDA education? The ABA and CFPB announced a joint webinar on August 8 at 2:00 pm EDT, which will instruct compliance, operations, and loan processing professionals on how to use the new platform for submitting HMDA data. The webinar will provide an overview of the new tool and data collection process that all financial institutions must use to submit HMDA data beginning January 1, 2018 for data collected during 2017 and going forward.

It's summer, but on July 20 the CFPB released its Spring 2017 rulemaking agenda. Certain aspects of the updated agenda are particularly noteworthy. The Bureau plans to begin "the first in a series of reviews of existing regulations that we inherited from other agencies through the transfer of authorities under the Dodd-Frank Act," noting that "other federal financial services regulators have engaged in these types of reviews over time, and believe that such an initiative would be a natural complement to our work to facilitate implementation of new regulations." The Bureau has formed "an internal task force to coordinate and deepen the agency's focus on concerns about regulatory burdens and projects to identify and reduce unwarranted regulatory burdens...." The agenda lists "pre-rule activities" as continuing through September 2017.

Law firm Buckley Sandler reports that, "Separately, the Bureau notes its ongoing assessments of the effectiveness of the Mortgage Servicing Rules, the Ability-to-Repay/Qualified Mortgage Rule, and the Remittance Transfer Rule pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act's five-year lookback provision."

And, of course, in the background is the leadership and authority of the CFPB being questioned through the PHH v. CFPB case. moves through the federal court (probably on the way to the Supreme Court). The state regulators and attorneys general are re-asserting themselves in the enforcement space as the CFPB takes a diminished role in the Trump administration.  Trump has attacked Director Cordray and regulation of industry generally even looking for ways to remove him from office. HUD Secretary Carson and Attorney General Sessions have called on HUD to stop bringing False Claims Act cases against lenders arising from the mortgage crisis.  And many federal laws and regulations either recently finalized by CFPB or pending have been called into question.

Capital Markets

Are you consuming more than you were 30 years ago? It matters since it drives the economy, and therefore contributes toward interest rate changes. In the 1980's U.S. personal consumption expenditures (PCE) represented between 63 and 64 percent of the U.S. economy, but today makes up close to 70 percent of real grow domestic product (GDP). PCE's contribution to GDP growth in today's economy, however, is weak in comparison to historical standards. Turns out that the U.S. consumer is essentially the only significant component of GDP that is contributing positively to growth; real government consumption, real gross fixed investment and net exports are all hardly contribution to the GDP growth. Investment in the energy sector temporarily boosted gross fixed investment's contribution to GDP, but that has reversed since the recent collapse of oil prices. And net exports and government expenditures have remained pathetically weak.

Real disposable income is an important determinant of real PCE, but its growth rate has weakened considerably since the Great Recession. So much so that PCE growth has recently outpaced real disposable income growth, which would therefore prevent further strengthening in PCE growth. Luckily, real disposable income growth has been mainly driven by low gas prices, which should remain low and continue to push real disposable income in the coming quarters. The prospect of lower taxes in President Trump's tax reform plan could boost real disposable income as well, however the consumer can only do so much; other sectors will need to improve their contributions to CPE if we want to see improvements in overall economic growth.

All of this impacts the bond markets, which in turn determine interest rates, on Friday U.S. Treasuries, and along with them mortgage-backed security prices, traded to multi-week highs despite no news or Fed speakers. ThomsonReuters termed the day a "further bull flattening of the treasury curve which aided the outperformance of lower coupon MBS on the stack and vs. benchmark curves." The 10-year price improved .250, closing yielding 2.23%, while the 5-year and MBS improved about .125.

Today we'll have Markit Manufacturing and Services PMIs, whatever all that means, but also coming up is the good old-fashioned June Existing Home Sales. Tomorrow is the May FHFA Housing Price Index, May S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index, July Consumer Confidence Index, and a $26 billion 2-year Treasury auction. Wednesday, we can look forward to the MBA Mortgage Index for last week, June New Home Sales, a $34 bln 5-year Treasury auction, and the FOMC Rate Decision - we can expect no change.

Thursday will be June Durable Goods Orders, Initial Jobless Claims, June International Trade in Goods, and a $28 bln 7-year Treasury auction. We end the week hearing about Q2 GDP and the GDP Deflator, Q2 Employment Cost Index, and July Michigan Sentiment. If you're wondering about rates, they're up a shade versus Friday afternoon: the 10-year is yielding 2.24% and agency MBS prices are down/worse less than .125.

Jobs, Personnel, and Products

"Alaska USA Mortgage Company, dba Procura Mortgage Company, is currently recruiting for an Assistant Vice President / Senior Loan Originator for our Everett, Tacoma and Bellevue locations to grow and develop a successful team, originate mortgage loans and manage branch office operations. Seeking highly motivated and experienced team builders to join a well-established organization. Great benefits, competitive pay, career advancement opportunities! Apply Online!Equal Opportunity Employer."

Fundingshield, a Fin-tech company focused on wire-fraud risk mitigation in mortgage settlements, tech-based third party risk oversight solutions for credit and compliance risk management and insurance underwriting services, is pleased to announce that William Klumper has joined its advisory board. William, a veteran of First Mortgage in Nebraska, Vice-Chairman of Residential Governance & Co-Chair of the council of Chairs at MISMO and a thought leader for the MBA Res-tech & CIO forums, will be a driving force in Fundingshield's effort to create standards for a best practice to combat rising levels of wire fraud impacting the mortgage industry. Fundingshield has taken a cooperative approach with title companies, lenders, law firms and insurance underwriters to offer customized solutions to lenders & entities of all sizes and scale including its Wire Account Verification System (WAVs) or its loan level closing verification certificate products for lenders. Contact Sales@fundingshield.com for further information on its products or services or to collaborate with its working group.

Paramount Equity is excited to announce Nino Saso as its new Executive Vice President of Retail Lending. Nino has more than 28 years of experience and will be responsible for building out a best-in-class national sales platform for Paramount while partnering with the operations, capital markets, and technology teams to develop a superior customer experience for both the sales group and consumers. Mike Berte, Paramount's President said "It's an incredibly exciting time for Paramount. We have very strong momentum following two consecutive years of 100% year over year origination growth in both Consumer Direct and Retail lending. Nino adds significant depth and dimension to our leadership team and will quickly accelerate our diversified growth strategy and national expansion efforts." For career inquiries regarding opportunities in Sales and Operations, please contact our Recruiting Manager, Tara Gomes (916-218-7076). 

"Does your Subservicer help you reduce your Ginnie Mae DQ? The Money Source subservicing set out to build a best in class subservicing platform in 2015 and since doing so, is proud to offer a unique and proprietary program that guarantees results when it comes to reducing delinquencies with Ginnie Mae. To learn more about how you can experience subservicing built by mortgage bankers for mortgage bankers, click here."

PHH Corporation announced that Christopher Sabbe has joined the Company as Vice President, Business Development. Sabbe will report to Steve Staid, Senior Vice President, Servicing. "In this role, Sabbe will be responsible for overseeing the Company's sales strategy as PHH further expands into the mortgage subservicing market segment."

LendingTree has promoted Sam Mischner has been promoted to chief sales officer and head of mortgage after previously serving as senior vice president, sales, and general manager, mortgage. "In the new role, Mischner will lead the company's sales strategy and operations. Additionally, he will continue to be responsible for LendingTree's home lending product marketplace, which includes refinance, purchase, home equity and reverse, while growing LendingTree's network of lenders through new client and lender sales."