Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities remained the preferred investment choice of the 11 Federal Home Loan Banks during the fourth quarter of 2015 and for the year, according to a new ranking by Inside The GSEs based on data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. There was a slight 0.9 percent quarterly decline, but a generous 34.7 percent increase from a year earlier. GSE MBS accounted for 77.9 percent of combined MBS portfolios. The FHFA data does not separately break out Fannie and Freddie volume or share.Meanwhile, Ginnie Mae investments accounted for 11.7 percent and non-agency investments were 10.4 percent.
Over the past two years, PHH Corp. has lost $64 million on its mortgage business and now that Merrill Lynch has given notice that it wants to end some of its private-label contracts with PHH Mortgage, the nonbank’s future is beginning to look cloudier. Moreover, analysts and investors who follow the company wonder whether PHH’s private-label model – the bread and butter of its origination business – is fixable in the modern era of mortgage banking. Meanwhile, all of this is happening at a time when management hopes to sell the company, or at least field offers for some of its key assets, including a $226 billion servicing portfolio. The bad news for PHH started...
Some 59.6 percent of new issuance in the first quarter consisted of re-securitizations and deals backed by seasoned re-performing and nonperforming loans...
Although there hasn’t been a lot of good news on PHH of late, one analyst we spoke with noted a positive: “They still have plenty of cash on their books…”