The general consensus was that Mark Calabria would be easily confirmed as FHFA director. So it came as somewhat of a surprise when his nomination passed out of the committee last week on a 13- to-12, straight party-line vote.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association finally approved the uniform mortgage-backed security for delivery in the crucial to-be-announced market.
Freddie Mac increased its production of single-family mortgage-backed securities at a time when its two secondary market competitors saw significant declines in volume. [Includes two data charts.]
Zillow Group, which has tentacles in the mortgage industry, in late February announced that Rich Barton, the firm’s co-founder and former CEO, is returning as chief executive. Spencer Rascoff, a co-founder who has served as Zillow’s chief since 2010, will step down but will stay on as a director.
In a show of bipartisanship, work on reforms in the credit bureau industry kicked off this week, with legislation circulating and the House Financial Services Committee’s hearing testimony from CEOs of three major rating agencies.
This week, Mark Calabria moved a step closer to heading the Federal Housing Finance Agency. His nomination as the agency’s director was approved by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on a party-line vote of 13-12.
Do you trust your mortgage lender? This turns out to be a crucial question when it comes to persuading borrowers to refinance their homes, according to a paper by researchers at the Columbia Business School. The answer they got: Not so much.
Mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates shrunk in the fourth quarter of 2018, helped by tight underwriting standards along with a strong economy and home price trends. [Includes one data chart.]
Warehouse lenders ended the year with $64.0 billion of commitments on their books, a modest 1.4% sequential decline and flat compared to the same period a year ago, according to survey figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance. [Includes one data chart.]