President Trump this week signed a short-term spending bill that would keep the government operating until Feb. 8, 2018. The bill ended a three-day shutdown after the previous spending authority for most of the government expired at midnight on Jan. 19. However, the threat of another shutdown looms. FHA and Ginnie Mae both had contingency plans in place in case the short-lived shutdown dragged on, as it had in 2013. That event lasted for 16 days, at a loss of $1.6 billion a day to the federal government. Under FHA’s emergency plan, the agency would continue to endorse new single-family forward mortgages, but not Home Equity Conversion Mortgages and Title I loans. Ginnie would reduce staffing to essential personnel but continue its secondary market operations. It would continue to remit timely payment of principal and interest to investors, grant commitment authority and support issuance of ...

Recoveries from FCA Settlements Involving FHA Loans Down Dramatically in 2017. The Department of Justice reported collecting more than $543 million in False Claims Act settlements and judgments to resolve housing and mortgage fraud complaints in FY 2017, down from $1.6 billion in FY 2016. The largest settlement of a False Claims Act case was $296 million, which involved an FHA lender and the DOJ. In September 2017, a unanimous jury in Houston, TX, found that Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corp. and Allied Home Mortgage Corp. violated the FCA and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 by falsely certifying that thousands of high-risk, poor-quality loans were eligible for FHA insurance. The companies were also accused of originating FHA loans from more than 100 “shadow” branch offices without authorization from the ...

A record year in agency multifamily MBS issuance pushed the overall commercial mortgage securitization market to an all-time high in 2017, according to a new analysis by Inside MBS & ABS.

Losses on non-agency MBS backed by re-performing loans issued in recent years have been minimal, according to DBRS. Performance has been helped by home price appreciation, and the one deal to suffer significant losses was an outlier in terms of the types of loans it included.

The daily trading volume in agency MBS averaged $209.1 billion in 2017, the best showing in four years, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

Remarkably, Freddie Mac knocked out roughly $34.60 billion in multifamily MBS – over half of its total for the year – during the fourth quarter...

Statistical sampling, which gained widespread acceptance in MBS repurchase cases after the housing crisis, is being rejected in many courts today, legal experts say.

The year is still young, but two of the largest real estate investment trusts – Annaly Capital Management and New Residential Investment Corp. – have already priced stock deals totaling $852.5 million.

The aircraft ABS sector had a great 2017 and this year may be just as good, even though there could be some bumps along the way.

Lennar said the mortgages funded by its affiliate were “originated and sold in prior years.”