Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized a total of $43.18 billion of single-family mortgages that carried private mortgage insurance during the fourth quarter of 2013, according to a new market analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. That was down 25.8 percent from the $58.18 billion of private MI mortgages securitized by the two government-sponsored enterprises in the third quarter of last year. The silver lining was that overall GSE production declined even more, with new GSE mortgage-backed security issuance dropping 36.1 percent from the third to the fourth quarter. Overall, some 23.8 percent of GSE-securitized single-family mortgages had...[Includes two data charts]
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When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac unveil their fourth-quarter 2013 results in February, the two government-sponsored enterprises are expected to again report strong earnings driven by: higher guaranty fee income, one-time gains tied to legal settlements, and a boost from lower loan-loss reserves. But most of the money will be swept straight into the U.S. Treasury. One of the major factors in the GSEs huge 2013 earnings so far the release of deferred tax assets will likely be...
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Some of the largest bank owners of mortgage servicing rights are lining up to sell small- and medium-sized chunks of their portfolios in what likely will turn out to be a record year for sales. Bank of America which unloaded several huge packages last year is now in the market with an $8 billion Ginnie Mae MSR portfolio. Wells Fargo late this week confirmed that it will sell a $39 billion package of servicing rights backed by non-agency loans to Ocwen Financial Corp., and hinted that more deals are ahead. An industry advisor who works the servicing market told...
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Michael Stegman, counselor to the Treasury Department on housing-finance policy, said this week that legislation to reform the government-sponsored enterprises is a top priority for the Obama administration. However, industry analysts suggest that Congress is unlikely to pass such legislation anytime soon, leaving the Federal Housing Finance Agency as the driver of GSE reform. Indefinitely continuing a taxpayer-backed duopoly is neither sustainable nor sensible public policy, Stegman said this week at the ABS Vegas conference sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network. He pushed...
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Three House Democrats plan to introduce a new housing-finance reform bill that would leverage the Ginnie Mae mortgage-securitization infrastructure and private mortgage insurers. The reform proposal by Reps. John Delaney (MD), John Carney (AL) and Jim Himes (CT) would establish a system of government reinsurance for eligible mortgage-backed securities. The idea is to leverage the governments capacity and markets ability to price risk, they said. Their plan calls...
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Mortgage lenders may be suffering from compliance burnout these days after getting up to speed with major new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But they would do well to start preparing now for the bureaus revolutionary integrated mortgage disclosure rule that aims to change the way consumers shop for such loans and how lenders go about originating them. The integration of the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act mortgage disclosures has been a goal almost since the time the two statutes were issued, and certainly from the time the good-faith estimate began focusing on loan terms, Benjamin Olson, counsel at BuckleySandler, said during a webinar sponsored this week by Inside Mortgage Finance. The new disclosures become mandatory Aug. 1, 2015. Joseph Kolar, a partner with BuckleySandler, pointed...
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The Urban Institute said that new FHA loan limits may have a limited impact overall, but they could have dire consequences for some minority neighborhoods. The study found that the most affected metropolitan statistical areas had two things in common: they have a high share of FHA-insured loans, and their loan limits have dropped significantly. Of the 35 most affected MSAs, 13 are predominantly minority neighborhoods, all in California. Many of the most affected areas have...
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