Government

Less than two months after the San Antonio mayor's nomination for the post, the Senate voted Wednesday to confirm Julian Castro as HUD secretary as current cabinet member Shaun Donovan is poised to take over the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The body voted 71-26 to confirm Castro, a Democrat whose star has been on the rise since he delivered the opening keynote at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

SunTrust Banks, Inc., announced that it would pay up to $320 million to halt a criminal investigation into whether it had dealt inappropriately with homeowners who were looking to take advantage of the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). "Resolving this legacy matter enhances our ability to focus on the future and support the continued housing recovery," said Jerome Lienhard, SunTrust Mortgage, Inc., president and CEO.

GFS Capital Holdings, formerly Greenlight Financial Services, settled a claim with HUD regarding discrimination of women on maternity leave. The company agreed to pay a total of $48,000 to individuals against which it allegedly discriminated. HUD investigated Greenlight after a family complained the company denied their refinance loan application because the wife was on maternity leave at the time.

A report released last week by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) outlined the possible risks that nonbank servicers could pose to the greater housing market. To illustrate a point, the OIG pointed to a specific instance where a nonbank servicer had fallen below the minimum threshold capital requirement required by Fannie Mae. The servicer was then prevented from acquiring the right to service Fannie Mae mortgages. Though the OIG did not name names, people familiar with the matter revealed to the Wall Street Journal that the servicer in question was Nationstar.

On Wednesday, the Urban Institute (UI) issued a report finding that, based on the latest numbers, Ginnie's book of business is now at $1.5 trillion—a rate of growth that has tripled over the last seven years. What this means is that at its current rate of growth, Ginnie Mae will soon surpass Freddie Mac as the silver medalist in the single-family mortgage securitization platform game, behind Fannie Mae.

The U.S. labor market outperformed expectations by a wide margin in June, with gains in both April and May also revised upward.

In a letter sent to HUD, the National Association of Realtors reiterated its appreciation for the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) efforts to provide reduced mortgage insurance premiums to first-time homebuyers but complained about the high mortgage insurance premiums and counseling fees that come along.

On Wednesday, four federal financial regulatory agencies and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) issued risk management guidelines for financial institutions that need to be aware of the challenges borrowers may face in paying off their home equity lines of credit after coming out of a recession.

As scrutiny continues to grow in the servicing arena, the watchdog for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) says it has concerns about non-bank servicers working with GSE loans. Out of the 30 largest servicers, FHFA OIG says that non-banks held a 17 percent share of mortgage market as of the end of 2013, representing nearly $1.7 trillion. As a result, the report says these non-bank companies may have taken on more volume than they can handle.

The Justice Department announced that U.S. Bank has agreed to a $200 million settlement on claims it underwrote FHA-insured loans that did not meet eligibility requirements. U.S. Bank also admitted that its quality control program fell short of FHA requirements. Consequently, the bank failed to identify shortcomings in many of the loans it had certified for FHA insurance.