In case you missed it… here’s what happened in reverse mortgage news this week:
MetLife cut ties with fourth-party loans. Beginning in January 2012, MetLife will no longer purchase reverse mortgage loans from correspondent lenders that source their loans indirectly through mortgage brokers, a company spokesman confirmed Thursday in an email to RMD.
Cordray got denied… again. The Senate voted Thursday not to confirm Richard Cordray as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In a 53-45 vote, Senate said no to his confirmation, which has been pending for months since President Obama nominated him in July.
CFPB started collecting complaints on reverse mortgages. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has begun collecting and fielding mortgage complaints from borrowers, including those with reverse mortgages, the Bureau has announced via its official blog. Officials have said this information will be used to guide rule making in the future when it comes to mortgage products.
MetLife became the top reverse mortgage producer (officially). Wells Fargo officially lost its top spot for retail and wholesale endorsement volume in October and was overtaken by MetLife, who had 1,011 total endorsements compared to Wells’ 789, according to Reverse Market Insight’s HECM Originators newsletter for October 2011.
While MetLife didn’t quite surpass the former reverse mortgage lender’s retail volume, it is expected to do so in November, says RMI.
Don’t overcomplicate underwriting, NRMLA told lenders. Some originators raised questions during an industry webinar last week as to how much qualifying is actually necessary in the process for underwriting reverse mortgage borrowers for property charges. Under guidance from the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association regarding the new financial assessment, it’s important to qualify the borrower, but not overcomplicate the process, the association says.
Written by Elizabeth Ecker
