Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sellers had to repurchase just $173.34 million of home loans during the third quarter of 2018 due to defects in the origination process, according to a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends. It was the lowest quarterly buyback total since the two government-sponsored enterprises began filing repurchase activity disclosures with the Securities and Exchange Commission in early 2012. There was, however, a 12.9 percent increase ... [Includes two data charts]

The CFPB recently drafted a sweeping proposal seeking to expand benefits for companies obtaining a no-action letter.

For a company that’s coming off two back-to-back quarters of strong earnings, Texas Capital Bancshares, Dallas, is in a curious place: Its stock value continues to suffer mightily and its competitors in the warehouse sector believe its pricing is just too cutthroat to make sense. As Inside Mortgage Trends went to press late this week, TCBI’s common was trading at $50.17, a nick above its recent 52-week low of $49.34. Its high for the year is $103.05, which translates into a discount from ...

In her first public remarks as CFPB director, Kathy Kraninger has signaled a fresh start for the consumer watchdog.

Investors who focus on fixing homes and then selling them were less reliant on financing in the third quarter, according to Attom Data Solutions. A decline in the share of fix-and-flip financing has occurred at the same time that overall flipping activity is slowing. “Home flipping acts as a canary in the coal mine for a cooling housing market because the high velocity of transactions provides home flippers with some of the best and most real-time data on how the market is trending,” said Daren Blomquist ...

In one of her first acts in office, Director Kathy Kraninger has halted all ongoing efforts related to changing the CFPB’s name.

Legislation is needed to establish a digital registry system for mortgages and titles, according to two industry analysts, who recently released the Simplified Mortgage and Recorded Title Act, a proposed bill they claim will help prompt the return of a robust private secondary market for mortgages. The proposed legislation was drafted by William Fry, the sole proprietor of Greenwich Capital, and Robert Hockett, a professor at Cornell Law School. Prospects for the SMART Act look ...

House Democrats are calling for CFPB’s new Director Kathy Kraninger to resume supervisory examinations of financial institutions for compliance with the Military Lending Act.

Self-employed households have been slower to recover from the financial crisis even though they make more money than salaried households, according to a new study from The Urban Institute. The study attributes the situation partly to the fact that incomes for self-employed households are still below pre-crisis levels while incomes for salaried households have largely recovered. Also, mortgage use and the homeownership rate have largely declined more for self-employed ...

A dozen mortgage industry groups have asked the CFPB to update its integrated mortgage-disclosure rules in order to facilitate accurate disclosure of title insurance premiums and any potential available discounts to homeowners.