There is no independent auditor overseeing the federal agency responsible for some $6 trillion in home mortgages, because the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel ruled that the agency's inspector general didn't have authority to operate, according to internal memos obtained by...
What a difference 18 months can make. Need an example? Look no further than recent news from the GSEs that lenders are thumbing their noses at repurchase and reimbursement requests in record numbers. As reported in their quarterly filings, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are seeing an increase in the number...
My five-year-old nephew wanted to caddy for my brother's golf game. "You have to count my strokes," my brother told him. "How much is six plus nine plus eight?" "Five," answered the nephew. "Okay," my brother said, "let's go.." Mortgage banking...
Attack of the FHA loan files? Most of the United States begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and reverts to standard time on the first Sunday in November. So by my calculations, that means that this Sunday here in the U.S. most of us "fall back" and it will...
Not a week goes by that someone doesn't send me a script for a Hollywood movie based on mortgage banking . Usually it is either a) zany comedy starring Ben Stiller as a loan agent who doesn't know that the jumbo market has gone away, with Samuel L. Jackson as an irate borrower, b) an intense...
Time seems to fly in the mortgage banking business. Here we are, less than a week until the national conference in San Diego. Heck, here we are approaching Halloween! And I know that I am getting old when I wake up with that “morning-after feeling” and I didn't do anything the night before...
What’s not clear from yesterday's announcement is whether or not Fannie and Freddie are acting strategically or at the behest of Treasury or FHFA. Strategically this makes a lot of sense since the GSE’s have long supported a diverse market of loan sellers: credit unions, community banks...
Programs are underway on so many fronts to get foreclosures under control that it can be difficult to sort them all out. Early last week the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of Comptroller of the Currency issued their second quarter summary of foreclosure avoidance activity among large loan...
Out here in California, some in the business have been following the case of 28-yr old Garret Gililland III. Originally from the Sacramento area, he was just captured in Spain and brought back to California to face charges of a $100 million mortgage fraud ring. In yet another example of what seems to...