Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt said he has noticed an uptick in the number of minority-owned firms active in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac transactions. Watt, speaking at the National Association of Minority Mortgage Bankers of America conference in Atlanta earlier this month, discussed the importance of diversity and inclusion in the real estate industry. He noted that although a lot of work still needs to be done, the results so far have been encouraging. “Perhaps most exciting are the results we are seeing at the financial transaction level where minority-owned firms are now involved in...

Bucking the popular notion that housing-finance reform should come with a government guarantee, a real estate professor from George Mason University suggests divvying up the risks so it’s not just on the federal government. Anthony Sanders, distinguished real estate professor in the university’s school of business, said most housing-finance reform proposals are “the same things wrapped in different color paper.” In a blog post last week, Sanders said that essentially proposals want to shut down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and open a government insurance corporation that requires an explicit guarantee at the expense of taxpayers.

Freddie Mac Announces $497M SLST. Freddie Mac announced an approximately $497 million Seasoned Loan Structured Transaction of seasoned re-performing loans from its mortgage-related investments portfolio.This will be the fourth SLST since the launch of the program in 2016 and the first SLST of 2018. It also marks the first time a Freddie-created trust will be the issuer of the SLST securitization. OIG Says FHFA Complied with Statutory Improper Payment Requirements. The Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General noted in an April 26 audit that the FHFA complied with applicable improper payment requirements during fiscal year 2017. The auditor reviewed several...

Securitization of commercial mortgages got off to a solid start in the first quarter of 2018, with the non-agency sector showing more strength than it did a year ago. [Includes one data chart.]

A sharp increase in recent months in the volume of mortgages eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises being placed in non-agency MBS is exposing investors to higher potential losses than deals backed solely by prime jumbo loans, according to Kroll Bond Rating Agency.

The average daily trading volume in agency MBS fell to $215.2 billion in March, the lowest reading of the year and the worst showing since August of 2017, according to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

The performance and returns offered by credit card ABS differ significantly by the type of firm issuing the deal, according to a recent analysis by Moody’s Investors Service.

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust plans to issue $450 million worth of secured term notes collateralized by Fannie Mae mortgage servicing rights and excess receivables. The paper matures in April 2023.

Agency issuance of real estate mortgage investment conduits backed by single-family MBS jumped significantly higher in the first quarter of 2018, led by a huge increase in Freddie Mac production, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. [Includes one data chart.]

S&P Global Ratings has rated its first Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) securitization deal, which could help perk investor interest in the fledgling asset class.