The employment market for retail loan officers – as well as loan brokers – continues to look promising, provided that interest rates remain low this spring and nothing comes along to spook new homebuyers. Moreover, new employment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics seem to bear this out. In January – the latest figures available on residential finance hiring – mortgage brokerage firms nationwide added 2,100 full-time staffers, bringing total employment in the niche to 81,600, the highest reading in several years.

The government-sponsored enterprises accounted for the bulk of financing for mortgages on condominiums and co-op units in 2015, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of loan-level disclosures from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with data from the FHA. Some $76.01 billion in agency condo/co-op mortgages were funded in 2015, with the GSEs accounting for 96.0 percent of the volume. Purchase mortgages ... [Includes one data chart]

Evolution and innovation are usually double-edged swords – and that’s certainly proving to be true when it comes to technology and financial services. New research from DBRS finds that banks are increasingly using technology to differentiate themselves and to enhance the customer experience. But this market upgrade comes with a cost: smaller players with less financial wherewithal are being left further behind. The first main point DBRS analysts made ...

The mortgage lending industry appears to be having a strong first quarter of the year so far, profitability wise, with gain-on-sale margins up strongly – at least until more effects kick in from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s TRID integrated disclosure rule, according to a new analysis. “Our gain-on-sale index indicates margins rebounded sharply in first quarter 2016, up 22 percent quarter-over-quarter on average,” said analysts at Compass Point Research & Trading ...

Some observers say the latest rate adjustments by private mortgage insurers will not have a significant impact on FHA business nor would they compel the government agency to alter its mortgage insurance premiums or policy. Others say the pricing change could trigger a race to the bottom as risks of MIP cuts increase materially. Six private MIs have announced adjusted rates over the last couple of months inresponse to new eligibility standards set by ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac customers repurchased $357.1 million of mortgages during the fourth quarter of 2015, another record low, according to a new analysis by Inside The GSEs. Seller repurchases, including buyback demands settled through indemnification, were down 17.7 percent from the third quarter, marking the fourth consecutive record low. At the same time, the inventory of unresolved buyback demands continued to decline. Only $657.2 million of loans were subject to pending or disputed repurchase requests at the end of 2015, the smallest pipeline of such cases since the GSEs began disclosing repurchase activity back in early 2012. The Dodd-Frank Act requires “asset securitizers” to file quarterly reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission...

Whether or not to allow chattel loans, and how to best support the manufactured housing industry, was one of the topics that garnered the most attention in the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s proposed rule. The Federal Housing Finance Agency received 324 comments before the commenting period closed on March 17. Many noted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be doing more in the MH market, and pointed specifically to supporting chattel lending. Leslie Gooch, senior vice president of government affairs for the Manufactured Housing Institute, said the FHFA should require the GSEs to significantly increase their support of MH through the purchase of home-only, or chattel loans.

The GSEs stopped investing in low income housing tax credits in 2008 and now the Federal Housing Finance Agency is contemplating whether to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to resume LIHTC investing. While Fannie Mae is all for it, several affordable housing organizations express concern about the re-entry of the GSEs into the market. Fannie said its presence would enhance the stability of the LIHTC program and serve as a reliable source of capital for affordable housing in diverse economic cycles and markets. As an equity investor, the GSE explained that it will not displace private funding, but will instead look to balance the distribution of equity capital across the LIHTC market to include segments that still suffer from limited liquidity.

The GSEs’ insurance and reinsurance programs grew in 2015 and are expected to grow faster than Fannie Mae’s Connecticut Avenue Securities and Freddie Mac’s Structured Agency Credit Risk, which combined accounted for 83 percent of the volume in credit-risk-sharing transactions to date since the program began in 2013. Scott Smith, the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s associate director of capital policy, said that number slipped some in 2015 and that CAS and STACR were 75 percent of the volume in 2015, due to the emergence of insurance and reinsurance programs. Fannie’s Credit Insurance Risk Transfer and Freddie’s Agency Credit Insurance Structure have been picking up steam throughout 2015, said Smith.

After his request was rejected by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Tim Pagliara, director of Investors Unite, filed a lawsuit in state courts this week seeking to gain access, as an individual stockholder, to the corporate records of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. With Fannie chartered under Delaware’s law and Freddie under Virginia’s jurisdiction, Pagliara, along with several other shareholder plaintiffs, argue that the U.S. Treasury Department’s sweep of the GSEs’ profits is illegal under state law. His suit, in particular, focuses on allowing him to inspect the books and records of Fannie and Freddie to get a better idea of the circumstances surrounding the sweep. Under the terms of the net worth sweep, the GSEs...