President Trump this week announced Michael Bright as his choice to lead Ginnie Mae, an agency under the Department of Housing and Urban Development, even as Senate Democrats continued to delay vote on his nominee for FHA commissioner. Bright is currently Ginnie Mae’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, though he has been serving as acting president since Theodore Tozer stepped down on Jan. 20, 2017. Tozer served as Ginnie president under the Obama administration for nearly seven years. Bright joined Ginnie on July 11, 2017. Previously, he served as director for financial markets at the Milken Institute and as senior vice president of BlackRock/PennyMac. During his time with Milken, Bright co-authored a paper with Ed DeMarco, former acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and currently president of the Financial Services Roundtable, which proposed to ...

Community mortgage lenders called for an investigation of pricing practices of private mortgage insurers regarding their use of volume discounts and other incentives to get more business from lenders selling loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In a letter to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt, the Community Home Lenders Association raised concerns about “pricing disparities” in lender-paid mortgage insurance based on lender size and volume. Such practices may involve better pricing offers to larger lenders or bidding out loan pools based on the percentage of discounts larger lenders get from their customary private MI pricing, the CHLA said. In addition, some private MIs offer special pricing to lenders that agree to do business exclusively with them – a type of proxy for volume discount. The group asked the FHFA, as the regulator of Fannie and Freddie, to investigate whether ...

FHA extended foreclosure timelines for properties with a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loan in hurricane-stricken areas in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The 90-day extension aims to prevent further losses to the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. The foreclosure timelines were extended through Aug. 16, 2018, for HECM-backed properties located in areas ravaged by Hurricane Maria. Specifically, the extension applies to 78 affected municipalities in Puerto Rico, as well as HECM-backed properties on the islands of St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas. In a report to Congress last year, Ginnie Mae reported that, as of Sept. 30, 2017, its aggregate hurricane exposure to its mortgage-backed securities portfolio was approximately $166.9 billion from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. Ginnie’s exposure specific to Hurricane Maria totaled $13.7 billion, which is 1.24 percent of all ...

Caliber Home Loans has announced the pricing of a $325 million term-note offering secured by Ginnie Mae mortgage servicing rights and excess servicing spread. The structure is the first Ginnie MSR-backed issuance with a subordinate class, which provides Caliber access to additional financing for MSR portfolio growth not previously available within the industry. Ginnie Mae, which cleared the proposed funding and liquidity strategy, said the subordinate structure is a first for a Ginnie servicing debt financing by an agency-approved servicer. The secondary market agency must review and approve all financing agreements based on Ginnie servicing rights, and their overall structures prior to their issuance, said an agency spokesman. Two other servicers, PennyMac and loanDepot, have issued debt backed by servicing rights. Their structures, however, did not include a subordinate piece. “We recognize this ...

Military Direct Mortgage has announced a new training program to help educate real estate agents about the VA loan as well as the advantages of working with veteran borrowers. The program is called “Operation Welcome Home” and aims to connect home-purchase borrowers with real estate agents, who understand veterans’ specific needs and are versed in the VA loan process, said Patti White, president of the Avon, CT-based company. Many real estate agents have little or no knowledge of the VA loan and loan process, which makes the product the least of their priorities, said White. “For example, my husband has been retired from the service for 44 years and we have gone through refinancing,” she noted. “Yet no one has asked us if either of us had served in the military.” There is also a misconception about the VA loan –too much paperwork, restrictive rules and takes longer to close. “I just think there’s ...

Freddie Mac Introduces New 3 Percent Down Program. Freddie Mac has announced another 3 percent downpayment option for first-time homebuyers. The program is called HomeOne. HomeOne is the second of its kind. The government-sponsored enterprise currently has another 3 percent down conventional mortgage program in place called Home Possible. Home Possible offers the low downpayment option to low- and moderate-income borrowers. Freddie also announced that it is capping Home Possible’s income limits at 100 percent area of median income for properties in designated high-cost areas, designated disaster areas and minority census tracts in order to focus the product on low-to-mod income borrowers. On the other hand, HomeOne is different because it has no geographic or income restrictions on those seeking the 3 percent down option. It may not be used for ...

After an extended period of steady growth in its investment in the residential MBS market, the banking industry changed course in early 2018 and reduced its participation in the market, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. [Includes two data charts.]

The volume of prime non-agency MBS issuance is on the rise as investor demand for the product increases. Pricing in the non-agency MBS market for jumbos is rivaling execution levels for holding the loans in portfolio, and some issuers are seeing better returns by placing loans in non-agency MBS instead of delivering them to the government-sponsored enterprises.

The types of investment-property mortgages being included in new non-agency MBS pose more risk to investors than similar mortgages eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises, Fitch Ratings warned this week. [Includes one data chart.]

Caliber Home Loans has announced pricing of a uniquely structured private offering of secured term notes backed by Ginnie Mae mortgage servicing rights and excess servicing spreads