The Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of the Inspector General said the FHFA needs to focus on improving its oversight of the GSEs and Federal Home Loan Banks in several key areas. In fact, the FHFA faces four “serious” management and performance challenges that carried over from prior years, according to a recently published OIG memo to FHFA Director Mel Watt. The OIG is troubled by the agency’s supervision of the GSEs and said it needs to improve oversight of matters delegated to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as make its internal review process for non-delegated matters stronger.
The Federal Reserve Board’s Community Advisory Council and the Board of Governors said the current mortgage finance system doesn’t provide fair access to large segments of the population.They also noted that there’s a critical need to resolve the ongoing conservatorship. Members of the two groups held their semiannual joint meeting earlier this month and discussed the need to reform the housing finance market so that low to -moderate income borrowers aren’t left out.The council talked about the need to disaggregate economic data to understand the disparities that exist in mortgage lending, especially among minority groups.
Fannie Prices $1.2B CAS Deal. Fannie priced its seventh credit risk-sharing transaction of 2017 under its Connecticut Avenue Securities program. CAS Series 2017-C07, a $1.161 billion note offering, is scheduled to settle on Nov. 21, 2017, and is the final deal of the year. It was met with strong investor demand, including new investors, according to Laurel Davis, Fannie’s vice president of credit risk transfer. “Investors continue to provide us with positive feedback on the transparency we provide as part of our CAS program, including our response to recent hurricane events and the information we make available in Data Dynamics, our analytical tool for investors. We expect to continue regular benchmark issuance of CAS notes in 2018, subject as always to market conditions.”
Nine publicly traded mortgage companies posted a combined $52.22 million in mortgage banking earnings for the third quarter of 2017, according to a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends. The group’s third-quarter results represented a healthy 86.4 percent improvement over the paltry $28.02 million they earned from their core businesses during the April-June cycle. But the aggregate figures don’t begin to describe the state of most of these nonbank ... [Includes one data chart]
Mortgage lenders that sell single-family loans into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities continued to stretch the credit envelope during the third quarter, a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis reveals. But the increase in the share of higher-risk lending is still going at a glacial pace, and low-risk mortgages continue to dominate the government-sponsored enterprises’ business. During the third quarter, mortgages in the lowest ... [Includes two data charts]
Although mortgage companies are beginning to pare staff in anticipation of a seasonal production downturn, there appears to be a strong thirst for executive talent, as well as top managers looking elsewhere, according to interviews conducted over the past month by Inside Mortgage Trends. “Calls and e-mails from mortgage executives open to considering ‘a change’ usually spike at this time of year,” said Rick Glass, who runs the financial services recruitment firm that bears his name ...
As the mortgage industry continues evolving toward a 100 percent, end-to-end digital mortgage, automation and collaboration are playing essential roles, according to some top vendors. Bob Brandt, vice president of marketing and alliances at Optimal Blue, said, “The digital movement in the mortgage industry is all about automation – automation of the mortgage process truly from end to end: from lead generation to point of sale to processing and closing and the delivery of loans ...
Homebuyers’ “typical mortgage payment” has climbed about 10 percent in 2017 and may climb another 11 percent in 2018, according to a new analysis from CoreLogic. Company analysts attributed the payment change to rising mortgage rates over the past year. Typical mortgage payment (TMP) is a mortgage-rate-adjusted monthly payment based on each month’s median home-sale price. It is calculated using Freddie Mac’s average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage with ...
A lack of homes for sale is limiting the first-time homebuyer share of home purchases, according to the National Association of Realtors. NAR’s latest annual profile of homebuyers found 34 percent of respondents were first-time homebuyers, down from 35 percent in the 2016 report and the fourth lowest share for first-time homebuyers since 1981. The historical norm for first-time homebuyer share is 40 percent, according to NAR. Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said a “severe drought” ...