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(long, mainly about BofA) Principal Reductions Begin In Earnest – Felix Salmon – Seeking Alpha

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LPS: Home Prices Increased, but We’ve Been Down This Road Before – BY: ESTHER CHO – DS News
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HAMP Changes Can Expand Eligibility to More Military Members – BY: ESTHER CHO – Starting June 1, military homeowners who are permanently displaced by a job-related move may still be able to be considered owner-occupants when applying for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). … According to the announcement, borrowers may now qualify if they are displaced due to an out-of-area job transfer (such as Permanent Change of Station orders), intend to return to the home at some point in the future, and do not own any other single-family real estate. … – DS News
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(Ally-Rescap) Edens of Fortress Says Newcastle is Close to ‘Large’ Deal – By Jody Shenn – Newcastle Investment Corp. (NCT), the mortgage-asset buyer run by Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG), is “very optimistic” it will participate in a big investment in mortgage-servicing rights with other entities its manager oversees,  … The real-estate investment trust, which is based in New York, has been partnering with Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc. (NSM), the servicer and lender taken public by Fortress in March, on investments in mortgage servicing rights since December. … – Bloomberg
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JP Morgan Loss Bomb Confirms That It’s Time to Kill VaR - Yves Smith – Naked Capitalism
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CFPB Pursues Screening Standards for Mortgage Originators - BY: RYAN SCHUETTE – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) unveiled new rulemaking proposals Thursday that would require background checks for mortgage originators and complement a previous rule that prohibits loan officers from steering borrowers to higher-priced products. Together with these rules, others would provide consumers with discounts for paying mortgage origination points, mandate comparison plans for those interested in tracking different products, and ban brokerage firms from charging fees that vary by the loan size. - The M Report
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(GDP growth per $1 of debt) Guest Post: How Long Before Massive Government Debt Buildup Triggers Another Financial Shock? – Submitted by Tyler Durden – From Madeline Schnapp, Director of Macroeconomic Research at TrimTabs – …  Durden noted that, “It now takes $2.52 in new federal debt to buy $1 worth of economic growth.” … – Zero Hedge

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(about Donald Layton) Freddie Mac Names Retired JPMorgan Official CEO – Mortgage broker Freddie Mac named Donald Layton as its new chief executive officer. Layton worked for JPMorgan Chase for nearly 30 years before retiring in 2004. – NPR.org

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(rental REIT) Beazer Homes USA Investing in Distressed Homes - by Mike Wheatley – … For the last 12 months, Beazer Homes USA has responded to the housing crisis by snapping up hundreds of distressed homes, renting these properties out in the hope that one day, some of these renters may be able to buy the homes they are living in. The hard-hit cities of Las Vegas and Phoenix have been the focus  … In line with this new policy, the builder has decided to create a new subsidiary called Beazer Pre-Owned Rental Homes Inc. (BPRH), which will act as a real estate investment trust tasked with furthering the growth of the company’s new rental business. … – Realty Biz News

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Will the CFPB Kill the Mortgage Recovery? – By Paul Muolo – … let’s not kid ourselves: the CFPB’s decision to once again play with compensation formulas after the industry when through a wrenching LO comp nightmare a year ago will not help. … But regarding the new LO comp proposal, there’s always the possibility that the CFPB will come to its senses and not create an industry where only the megabanks will thrive. After all, the CFPB’s mission is to help consumers, not commercial bankers … – National Mortgage News
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Mortgage-aid revisions paying off for lenders and some borrowers – By E. Scott Reckard – Los Angeles Times – A newly streamlined government plan to reward homeowners who diligently pay their underwater mortgages is proving a bonanza for banks, which by one estimate may pocket $12 billion in extra revenue by refinancing loans. …  “The banks should charge lower than the market interest rate because the new version of the program means less work and less risk for them. Instead, they are charging more,” said Amherst Securities analyst Laurie Goodman, who titled a recent report on the program “And the Winner Is … the Largest Banks.” … – Myrtle Beach Online 
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(table: REOs "unable to market") Lawler: Fannie SF REO Inventory: Total vs. “Listed/Available for Sale” – by CalculatedRisk – … Of Fannie’s 114,157 SF REO properties, almost half – 54,795 – were characterized as being “unable to market” (meaning can’t be listed for sale). … Every so often some “quack” writes a piece saying that “lots” of GSE REOs aren’t listed for sale, “proving” that the GSEs are “holding properties off the market.” Hopefully disclosure such as these will make such quacks “duck” for cover. …
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The great realtor rip-off – Why is it so expensive to buy or sell a house in America? – The Economist

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Will the FHA require a bailout? – 12,000,000 underwater mortgages 3,000,000 are FHA insured loans. 1 million underwater mortgages originated in last two years. – Dr. Housing Bubble – …  For first time home buyers it was a stunning 50 percent showing that most people can only purchase a home today with a very small down payment.  Yet small down payments create instant negative equity positions if the market moves sideways or pops lower (aka our current market).  For example, the 3.5 percent standard FHA down payment is wiped away by the 5 to 6 percent selling costs. …

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The CIO has earned tremendous net profits over the past several years, despite this $2BLN loss. How? The core business of JPM is taking calculated risks. Shareholders and regulators would be irrational to expect gains without also accepting inevitably occasional, albeit sizeable, losses.

The CIO is essentially a proprietary trading desk, funded with retail branch deposits. Proprietary trading desks, like those at JPM, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and even Lehman, actually generated substantial profits throughout the credit crisis. By contrast, their presumably “safe” customer facilitation businesses, like home mortgage origination, CMBS lending, and ABS warehousing, generally suffered the critical—sometimes fatal—losses. Examples include Bear Stearns, BofA, Countrywide, Citibank, WAMU, Wachovia, RBS, and Lehman. (Fannie Mae, AIG, and Freddie Mac were in this camp, via their guarantee franchises.) History, ironically, simply dispels the Volcker-rule bias against proprietary trading.

If the intended CDX positions degraded from being hedges to outright risks, that should be no news. Our global regime of counterparty walk-away and publicly sponsored contract abrogation tends to trigger hedge-strategy failures. Think about the risk-averse investors who bought Greek sovereign default protection or MBIA-written ABS guarantees, in good faith.

This JPM loss, whether $2BLN or even $5BLN, is modest in both absolute and relative terms, versus its overall profitability and capital base, and especially against the far greater losses at other institutions. In practical current terms, the hit resembles a rounding error, not a stomach punch. As either taxpayers or long-term JPM investors, we should be more grateful than sorry about the JPM CIO. If only other institutions could also do so “poorly”………

Thank you.

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($1.1 $ Trillion) MBA Projects 2012 To See Lowest Mortgage Lending Level In Five Years – by Elizabeth Ecker – Projections show a low year for reverse mortgage endorsements. The forward lending world, too, sees 2012 as having the lowest volume in five years, by dollar amounts. Originations will fall to less than $1.1 trillion in 2012, according to a report by National Mortgage News, which cites statements made by the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Michael Fratantoni, VP of research. – Reverse Mortgage Daily

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Donovan: Servicer Competition Prevents More Refinancing – BY: RYAN SCHUETTE – … The hearing quickly turned to servicer competition, which the HUD official said is lacking in part because of strict underwriting guidelines under Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, … “Servicers who don’t service that loan are being discouraged from competing to refinance those loans,” he told lawmakers, citing a “number of changes” that legislators and regulators could make to remove barriers to homeowners. He faulted existing loan representations and warranties for discouraging servicers from allowing borrowers to refinance at historically low interest rates. … – The M Report 

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New Rules May Curtail Some Fees in Mortgage – By EDWARD WYATT – WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said it planned to propose tighter mortgage lending regulations that would limit the ability of banks and mortgage brokers to charge certain transaction fees, possibly ending one of the most abusive costs levied on consumers when they buy a house. Bureau officials said that the rules, which were released Wednesday ahead of formal introduction this summer, would ban mortgage companies from charging origination fees that vary with the amount of the loan. Those fees are sometimes referred to as origination points … But they can easily be confused with the upfront discount points that borrowers often pay to secure a lower interest rate. … more – NY Times 
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Renting Prosperity - Daniel Gross – … Americans are increasingly acclimating to the idea of giving up the stability of being an owner for the flexibility of being a renter. This may sound like a decline in living standards. But the new realities of our increasingly mobile economy make it more likely that this transition from an Ownership Society to what might be called a Rentership Society, far from being a drag, will unleash a wave of economic efficiency … – Wall Street Journal

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(QM’s 2 paths – which to choose?) Safe Harbor or Sinking Ship? – Diane Gozza – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau … Lenders that adhere to the guidelines may gain a higher degree of legal protection, known as “safe harbor,” against potential law suits that result from borrower default. … However, like most regulatory changes of late, there are two schools of thought on this issue. There are those that want a guarantee of ultimate protection, that there would be no permissible cause of action with regulation adherence, versus those that would like a more broad definition of “qualified mortgages” in exchange for weaker legal protection. … – National Mortgage News

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(subservicing deal) BRIEF: HSBC turns over mortgage processing to PHH Mortgage Corp. – David Robinson, Buffalo News – HSBC Bank has agreed to transfer its retail mortgage servicing and processing operations to PHH Mortgage Corp. in a deal that will have an impact on the bank’s Depew mortgage processing center. – Chicago Tribune

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Ginnie Mae to tighten MBS standards – By Jon Prior – Lenders applying for Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed approval will find it more challenging in the coming months, according to one official. "We’re undergoing a philosophical re-examination of the question: Who is it that should be a Ginnie Mae issuer," asks Michael Drayne, senior vice president of the Ginnie office of mortgage-backed securities. … According to the current policy, issuers seeking approval must demonstrate the ability to do the job and have certain practices in place. Single-family issuers must also hold a minimum net worth of $2.5 million. Under the new guidelines, potential issuers must be able to demonstrate they have the capital to keep moving cash to investors and to service these loans during any type of economic cycle, not just the current one, Drayne said. "If we ask a firm how they’re going to service the loans, and they come back and say, ‘Well, we’re going to just use a subservicer," that entity won’t be approved," Drayne said. … – Housingwire

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HUD secretary says some homeowners received $100K+ in principal reductions - By Justin T. Hilley – Some families living in the most deeply underwater states such as Nevada and California are receiving principal reductions exceeding $100,000 from the mortgage servicing settlement, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said before the Senate Banking Committee … – Housingwire

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press release – CoreLogic Announces New GSE REO-to-Rental Data Offering for Bulk Investors - … Updated Valuations, Average Rent Pricing and Market Trends: Available in One Business Day … – 4Traders.com
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(chart) Radar (Logic) Watching: March 2012 – … As for the latest trends, it’s important to note that the 25-MSA Composite is showing significant year-over-year declines while prices continue to bounce from the lows set in late-January. The latest data shows that as of early-March, prices have declined 2.71% below the level seen in March 2011 continuing the pattern of past years with prices now heading higher as the data moves into the typically more active spring selling season. … – Paper Economy – A US Real Estate Bubble Blog

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FHFA Explains Intentions of REO-to-Rental Initiative – ESTHER CHO – … Meg Burns, FHFA’s senior associate director for housing and regulatory policy, explained in a testimony to lawmakers … the bulk sale of Fannie Mae REO properties to investors who will then convert their purchases into rental units. Calling the initiative “highly inappropriate on a national scale,” Burns said the “markets are carefully selected, based on obvious market characteristics – an oversupply of single family homes for sale and a strong demand for rental housing.” ... – DS News

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Despite bump, Las Vegas home prices expected to fall through 2013 – By Steve Green – VegasInc
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AARP to Congress: Lift Cap on the Number of FHA Reverse Mortgages – by Elizabeth Ecker – … “To guarantee continuity of the HECM program, AARP supports legislation that would remove the statutory limit on the number of loans that can be insured by HUD in a given year,” Trawinski said. “Loan limits were imposed when the HECM program was a pilot program. The loan number cap has been raised several times over the years and has, at times, led to a halt in originations when the cap was reached. Lifting the statutory loan limit would be helpful in encouraging lenders to offer reverse mortgages and remain committed to this market.” … – Reverse Mortgage Daily
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(mostly common sense) How to Prepare for an Annual Home Inspection – by Nicole Martinez – Realty Biz News

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(Originator comp proposals from CFPB 37 pages) Small Business Review Panel for Residential Mortgage Loan Origination Standards Rulemaking – OUTLINE OF PROPOSALS UNDER CONSIDERATION AND ALTERNATIVES CONSIDERED – hattip Peter Miller – CFPB website
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TD Bank Eyes Role as Mortgage-Bond Issuer – TD Bank is giving serious thought to securitizing its portfolio of U.S. jumbo mortgages. – Asset Backed Alert

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Fiserv Expects Home Prices to Stabilize This Year Despite Price Declines – BY: ESTHER CHO – DS News
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(more delevering) Profile of a Refinanced Loan in the First Quarter - BY: ESTHER CHO – According to Freddie Mac’s first quarter refinance analysis, 79 percent of homeowners who refinanced their first-lien mortgage either maintained or reduced their mortgage debt. Of these borrowers, 58 percent retained about the same loan amount, which is the highest level reached in the 26-year history of the analysis, while 21 percent managed to reduce their principal balance. The remaining 21 percent of those who refinanced were “cash-out” borrowers, or those who increased their balance by at least five percent. Between 1985 and 2008, the weighted average for the cash-out share was 50 percent. – more – DS News
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S&P: 46 months to clear shadow inventory – by Justin T. Hilley – The time it will take to clear the nation’s shadow inventory contracted one month in the first quarter to 46 months, just enough to slow the rate of home price declines, according to Standard & Poor’s Rating Services. – Housingwire

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Affidavits Are Not a Substitute for Evidence of Debt Ownership – posted by Bob Lawless – The Tennessee Court of Appeals has issued a decision that highlights the problems facing credit card debt collectors in a post-robosigning world (see here and here). The decision reaffirms what should be a simple principle in a debt-collection lawsuit. The burden is on the debt collector to show it owns the debt and to show the consumer is liable for the amount the debt collector asserts. The debt collector’s say-so is not enough. – Credit Slips

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FHA New Foreclosures Jump as Modified Loans Default – By Kathleen M. Howley – … after half the mortgages it modified to ease repayment terms were in default again a year or more later. … Borrowers with mortgages for homes bought in 2010, the FHA’s peak lending year, now owe almost 7 percent more than their homes are worth if they used the minimum down payment, according to S&P/Case-Shiller home price index data … The agency in 2010 began mandating credit scores of at least 580 for borrowers who use its minimum down payment –which was raised to 3.5 percent from 3 percent in 2009. Last year the FHA cut the amount that sellers can give to buyers for down payments to 3 percent from 6 percent. … – Bloomberg 
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(commercial real estate) Accuracy of Appraisals Is Spotty, Study Says – By JULIE SATOW – … Using data from thousands of securitized real estate bonds in which the properties were foreclosed on and liquidated, the study, … found a wide discrepancy between the appraisal values and the eventual sales prices of the properties. In general, appraisals overvalued the properties, the study found. Of the 2,076 properties it examined, 64 percent were appraised at values that exceeded the sale price, by a total of $1.4 billion, while 35.5 percent were appraised at less than the sale price, by a total of $661 million. … – NY Times 

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(why is this buried in a highway funding bill?) Groups Lobby to Temporarily Lift Bank-Qualified Bond Limit – By Kyle Glazier – The Bond Buyer
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(agency buybacks) Mortgage Putbacks Must Change, Former Freddie Credit Chief Says – By Jody Shenn – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should charge more to guarantee mortgages if lenders make loans with underwriting flaws, rather than punish banks after debts default by demanding repurchases, according to Freddie Mac (FMCC)’s former chief credit officer. “The way it should be paid for is not through a call on your balance sheet, but through the price,” said Ray Romano, who earlier this year joined Genworth Financial Inc. (GNW)’s U.S mortgage-insurance unit. “What we’ve done as an industry is we’ve provided investors a put option against changes in economic conditions for a risk they were supposed to take.” – Bloomberg

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Fannie, Freddie are Set to Reduce Mortgage Balances in California – POSTED BY ALEX FERRERAS – LoanSafe.org

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In California, GSE-Backed Loans to Accept Funds for Reducing Principal – BY: ESTHER CHO     – … Different from simply writing off principal or forgiving principal, the GSEs instead, may accept dollars provided through the Hardest Hit Fund (HHF). The Keep Your Home California program, which was established through the HHF, once required participants to match funds it provided towards reducing principal balances, which could be up to $50,000. Recently, housing finance agency (HFA) officials from the state announced a decision to no longer require lenders to match the funds the program provides ... – DS News

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PIMCO Total Return Fund MBS Holdings Hit Record $137 Billion As Fund Rises To All Time High AUM – Submitted by Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge
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(mostly sand states) The 15 Best Housing Markets For The Next Five Years – Mamta Badkar – Business Insider 
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(summary and presetation) Jeff Gundlach Shares His Wisdom On Debts And Deficits – Simone Foxman – Bujsiness Insider 

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(lists 3 bills) HUD: 3 bills will complete Obama refinancing initiative – By Justin T. Hilley – Three bills intended to increase homeowner refinancing were introduced this week by Democratic senators — bills that HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said are “a win, win, win and something that we think can gain real bipartisan support very quickly and get passed.” – Housingwire

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Freddie’s New CEO Layton Vows to Work on ‘Nuts and Bolts’ – By Kate Berry – … "The first thing I have to do is a lot of homework, a lot of studying, a lot of talking to people. It’s important not to prejudge them," Layton said in an interview with American Banker about an hour after he was officially named to the job Thursday afternoon. "The core component of the job is to make sure it runs as a high-quality operation, that it process guarantees, and gets the nuts and bolts done first. The company says it has issues with that."  … – National Mortgage News

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Fannie, BofA mortgage repurchase tensions spike in 1Q - By Jon Prior – … The bank faces more than $3 billion in Fannie Mae mortgage buyback requests aged at least 120 days as of March 31, triple the amount from three months prior, according to a financial filing from the GSE Wednesday. … The bank claimed a new policy Fannie undertook to request buybacks based on mortgage insurance rescissions was not valid under a repurchase claims settlement worth $3 billion that was signed more than a year ago. The bank felt it conflicted with the settlement and told Fannie it didn’t intend to make any repurchases under the new guidelines. The more than $3 billion in outstanding claims represents 71% of the Fannie Mae aged claims. … – Housingwire

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(new lawsuit coming?) Bank Loan Bundling Investigated by Biden-Schneiderman: Mortgages – By David McLaughlin – New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Delaware’s Beau Biden are investigating banks for failing to package mortgages into bonds as advertised to investors, … The states are pursuing allegations that some home loans weren’t correctly transferred into securitizations, undermining investors’ stakes in the mortgages, according to two people with knowledge of the probes. They’re also concerned about improper foreclosures on homeowners as result, said the people, who declined to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. … – Bloomberg

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Lenders Seek QM Rule for Private Reverse Mortgages – Brian Collins – The National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association has asked a federal regulator to craft a ‘qualified mortgage’ rule specifically for private reverse mortgages. Such a QM rule would spell out the characteristics of reverse mortgages that could be originated and securitized without a risk retention requirement, NRMLA president and chief executive Peter Bell told a House panel Wednesday afternoon. – American Banker

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New American Dream is Renting; Reflections on Renting Houses, Cars, Books, Clothes; Will Rentership Fuel the Next Boom? What About Home Prices? – Michael Shedlock - Housing has now gone full circle. President Bush’s "Ownership Society" has morphed into the "Rentership Society". – MISH’S Global Economic Trend Analysis   

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California Pushes Write-Downs Under Obama Program – By Alan Zibel – Wall Street Journal Blogs
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PRESENTING: The Holy Grail For Predicting Interest Rates - Joe Weisenthal – As we wrote about this weekend, the St. Louis Fed’s awesome economic database FRED recently added monthly and annual vehicle miles traveled data to its database. – Business Insider

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Father Of Mortgage Bonds: Home Prices Are Bottoming - Rob Wile – BusinessWeek’s Jody Shenn reports Lewis Ranieri believes the housing market has hit bottom. – Business Insider 
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Fannie, Freddie Should Issue Interchangeable Bonds, MBA Says – By Jody Shenn – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should work toward issuing interchangeable mortgage-backed securities, said David Stevens, the head of the Mortgage Bankers Association. Taking the step would increase the liquidity of Freddie Mac bonds, boosting their prices, and protect securities from both government-backed companies as volumes decline once interest rates rise, Stevens said today at a conference in New York hosted by the group. A common security could also be used as the mortgage-finance market is reformed, he said. – Bloomberg

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Tumbling Homeownership Marks a Return to Normal – By Chris Farrell – Bloomberg
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(Forced placed) Look Who’s Pushing Homeowners Off the Foreclosure Cliff - … Now it turns out some lenders haven’t merely been unhelpful; their actions have pushed some borrowers over the foreclosure cliff. Lenders have been imposing exorbitant insurance policies on homeowners whose regular coverage lapses or is deemed insufficient. The policies, standard homeowner’s insurance or extra coverage for wind damage, say, for Florida residents, typically cost five to 10 times what owners were previously paying, tipping many into foreclosure. …. – Bloomberg
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Ginnie Mae Comes Clean on Application Approval Woes – Bonnie Sinnock – … “We really want a large issuer base,” Ginnie Mae president Ted Tozer told attendees at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Secondary Market Conference Monday in New York. The Ginnie Mae president, speaking on a secondary markets panel, said the agency is adding some account executives to its traditionally lean staff and hopes to push through the best prospects first, making the processing time shorter for players with complete applications and strong capital levels. … – National Mortgage News 
 
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Pimco Says Wells Fargo Not to Blame for Record Mortgage Share – By Jody Shenn – Bloomberg

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PHH Mortgage closes massive mortgage deal with HSBC – By Jacob Gaffney – PHH Mortgage will also provide HSBC with mortgage origination processing services, as well as subservicing of a $15.5 billion prime mortgage loan portfolio and $36.6 billion of loans serviced for third-party investors. "Note that the company will not be bringing HSBC’s mortgage servicing rights asset onto its balance sheet as this is a subservicing arrangement," – Housingwire 

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CHART OF THE DAY: For The First Time Since The Crisis, Fannie Mae Doesn’t Need Fresh Cash From Taxpayers – Joe Weisenthal – Business Insider

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(servicing) Florida Supreme Court to hear landmark foreclosure case – By Kerri Panchuk – The Florida Supreme Court will decide whether financial firms can escape or remedy allegations of fraud in foreclosure proceedings by voluntarily dismissing the case. The case is a landmark in Florida since many financial firms rely on the dismissal-refile option to fix issues stemming from foreclosure complaints. …. The final decision could significantly impact foreclosures in the state if the Supreme Court decides banks cannot evade issues of alleged fraud associated with foreclosure processing by simply dismissing the foreclosure complaint and starting over again. … – Housingwire
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Another Housing Bear leaves the Woods – by CalculatedRisk – The list of former housing bears arguing that house prices are now at or near the bottom is growing. Even Professor Robert Shiller – without making a prediction and suggesting prices could "overshoot" – said this week on CNBC that "[house prices] are back to normal levels". Even your local Grizzly Bear left the woods earlier this year. Now from Mark Kiesel at Pimco. Back In​  
And from Bloomberg: Pimco Housing Bear Kiesel Says It’s Time to Start Buying

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(statistical manipulation?)

Men over 20 leaving the workforce, reducing average pay per worker – Sober Look Blog – Friday’s US jobs data was quite dismal, with 115K jobs created (vs. 160K expected) – yet the unemployment rate once again showed a decline to 8.1%. Clearly the markets were not impressed, as equities dropped sharply (down 1.6%). Market participants simply do not trust the headline unemployment number any longer. The broader unemployment rate measure that includes "marginally attached" and part time workers (U6) was in fact unchanged. More importantly, we are continuing to see the same pattern of declining jobless claims…
and
(gaming the system?) 2.2 Million Go On Disability Since Mid-2010; Fraud Explains Falling Unemployment Rate; Will Higher Disability Taxes Fix the Problem? – Michael Shedlock – Since mid-2010, precisely the time millions of US citizens used up all of their 99 week of unemployment insurance, disability claims have risen by 2.2 million. Those on disability are not counted in the workforce and are not considered unemployed. – MISH’S Global Economic Trend Analysis

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(Dodd-Frank) After 2 years, fiscal reform’s impact in TN still hazy – Elizabeth Bewley – … But banks and other businesses in Tennessee are still sifting through the law’s 848 pages to figure out how the regulations mandated will affect them. So far, they say, it doesn’t look good — at least from a banker’s perspective. “It’s a tremendous volume of regulation that will be very expensive to comply with, and likely poorly engineered since it has to be rolled out so quickly,” said Terry Turner, chief executive of Pinnacle Financial Partners, a Nashville-based bank with locations in eight Middle Tennessee counties … – The Tennessean
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Mortgage loan officer licensing has reduced choices for Ohio consumers – By Teresa Dixon Murray, The Plain Dealer – A decade ago, Ohio had an estimated 12,000 mortgage loan officers who didn’t work for banks. Now, there are fewer than 3,000.  
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(click on the chart) Mish on "Rentership" and House Prices – by CalculatedRisk – Note: The graph was originally for Japan, but Mish is using it to show how sentiment changes. Mish thinks we are now in the lower right "purple" zone and back to "It’s better to rent". 

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HAMP Activity Slides, HAFA Holds Steady - CARRIE BAY – DS News

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Foreclosed Houses Become Homes for Indoor Marijuana Farms – By NORIMITSU ONISHI – NY Times 
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The Long Case For Annaly Capital – Mel Daris – Seeking Alpha 

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(charts too) ABS – the changing face of US "shadow banking" - Here are the latest statistics on the US asset-backed securitization industry – the so-called "shadow banking". In spite of what has been said about ABS, it continues to be a critical source of financing in certain areas. – Sober Look
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The Scariest Jobs Chart — By Far (And You Haven’t Seen It Before) - By Jed Graham – For all of the attention paid to the labor force participation rate — now at its lowest point since 1981 — much of the decline has little to do with the state of the job market and everything to do with demographics. Harm Bandholz, chief U.S. economist at UniCredit, figures that fully half of the decline in the participation rate since the end of 2007 is due to the aging of the population and, thus, should have been anticipated. Since the recession began, the 55-and-up population is up by nearly 10 million, while the 16-54 population is down by a half-million, including a 2.5 million drop among the 35-44 group. – Investors Business Daily

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For Rob Chrisman’s latest daily post, click here.

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Ginnie Mae requires (4) more MBS disclosures – By Jon Prior – … beginning in September. Both the upfront mortgage insurance premium and the annual MIP rate charged must be made available to investors. Issuers must also disclose what type of institution originated the loan, specifically who took the application. Any first-time homebuyers must be highlighted as well. – Housingwire

and
GNMA Plan Tells Investors if Loan Brokers, TPOs Are Involved – By Brian Collins – Ginnie Mae wants to provide more loan-level data to its MBS investors so they can determine if the underlying mortgages were originated through a mortgage broker or some other third-party channel. Starting in September, Ginnie Mae issuers must begin reporting whether a loan application was taken by mortgage broker or a correspondent lender, according to an “All Participants Memorandum” the secondary market agency issued this week. APM 12-07 also directs Ginnie Mae MBS issuers to report to the agency if the borrower is a first-time homebuyer. – more details – National Mortgage News
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In Much of California, Renting More Expensive than Buying - Mike Simonsen – (cites Movato.com  study) – Altos Research

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(Chicago $$$) Vacant building ordinance nets $619,000 in fines so far – City of Chicago said it fined more than 150 mortgage servicers during first quarter for not abiding by its vacant building ordinance – By Mary Ellen Podmolik, Chicago Tribune

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RMD Report: Marketing to Baby Boomers: A New Ball Game – by Elizabeth Ecker – Reverse Mortgage Daily

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(yes it’s Vanilla Ice) VANILLA ICE: The Housing Market Is Better Than Ever - Lisa Du – Business Insider
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Redwood boosts profit, plans more RMBS – By Jon Prior – Redwood Trust took in more profits in the first quarter on higher market value adjustments of its securities. The California real estate investment trust reported $30 million in net income, or 37 cents per share, up 66% from $18 million in profits one year ago. – Housingwire

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(charts too) The Crashing US Housing Metro Areas - Submitted by drhousingbubble – US home prices have once again made a post-bubble low in spite of all the artificial intervention and massive bailouts to financial institutions. … The weakness is being driven by the large number of distressed properties being sold.  Even though foreclosure sales are trending lower, this is being over shadowed by a larger number of short sales being ushered through by lenders. In other words, properties are exiting quicker from the system but they are still distressed. Lenders have a front row seat to what is going on and essentially what they are saying with a swarm of short sales is they believe home prices in the intern will be going down. … – Zero Hedge

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(must read) Guest Post: Dr. Lacy Hunt On Debt Disequilibrium, Deleveraging, And Depression – Submitted by Tyler Durden – … look at the 30-year bond. It is one of the best economic indicators available today. If economic conditions are robust then the yield will be rising and vice versa. What the current low levels of yield on 30 year bonds is telling you is that the underlying economy is weak. "The 30-year yield is not at these low levels DUE to the Federal Reserve; but in SPITE OF the Fed," Hunt said. … This is critically important to understand. While the media remains focused on GDP it is the wrong measure by which to measure the economy. A truly growing economy leads to rises in prosperity. GDP does NOT measure prosperity — it measures spending. It is the measure of real personal incomes that measures prosperity. Prosperity MUST come from rising incomes. … – Zero Hedge
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Fannie Mae’s Approval of Mortgage Principal Reductions Gets the Silent Treatment - Anna Cuevas – Huffington Post

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(Settlement expires 2015) National Mortgage Settlement Expires In 2015, Banks Battling To Keep Reforms From Becoming Permanent – Ben Hallman – The promises made by five of the nation’s largest banks under the much-ballyhooed $25 billion mortgage settlement have a surprisingly short shelf life.  … But the legal agreements among the banks, and the states and federal government hold for only three-and-a-half years; the pledge runs out in 2015. Now many of these banks are battling California Attorney General Kamala Harris over her push to make permanent some of the settlement’s most important "servicing standard" reforms by writing them into state law. … Harris said. "We need to make the fixes permanent." Banks do not seem to agree. – Huffington Post
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California has 12% of US Population, 33% of Welfare Recipients; Texas is Best State to Do Business; California, Illinois, and New York the Worst; Where Does Your State Rank? – MISH’S Global Economic Trend Analysis

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