Fannie Mae last week updated its policies to allow seller/servicers to pledge a transfer of interest in their servicing income as collateral. Now Fannie, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae have three different approaches for the pledge of servicing income and/or servicing advances. David Fleig, president and CEO of MorVest Capital, an investment firm, noted that the update by Fannie follows a move by Ginnie. Last year, Ginnie started allowing issuers to pledge servicing income without notifying Ginnie. Fannie’s new policy requires...

Although most of the heavy lifting in writing new rules for the mortgage industry has passed, federal regulators still have some significant projects in the works, according to recently released semiannual regulatory agendas. The Federal Housing Finance Agency expects to release a proposed “duty-to-serve” regulation for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the end of this year. The rulemaking was mandated by the 2008 Housing and Economic Recovery Act but hasn’t gotten much attention since the agency published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking back in August 2009. The FHFA is...

Combining the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program and the traditional forward mortgage program in assessing the soundness of the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund could produce inaccurate results and ill-advised policy changes, warned the Urban Institute. Analysts at the institute said the FHA’s basis for assessing the MMI Fund’s solvency creates a distorted picture of the value of the fund and that the agency should separately assess its forward and reverse mortgage businesses to get an accurate picture of their performance and impact on the fund. The FY 2015 actuarial report drew...

Mortgage delinquency rates rose modestly during the third quarter of 2015 as foreclosure rates continued to improve, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance Large Servicer Delinquency Index. Some 5.85 percent of the $5.477 trillion of home loans covered in the survey were in some stage of default as of the end of September. That was up from 5.70 percent in the second quarter. All of the increase came in the two least-severe categories of default. The Mortgage Bankers Association last week reported...

Among the top five jumbo lenders, only Chase was able to increase its production between the second quarter and the third quarter.

Ellington Financial, a REIT that carries an 11.20 percent dividend and yield, has admitted to buying non-QM loans in past filings with the SEC, but has not racked up huge volumes...

UWM may soon surpass Stearns Lending to become the largest wholesale-broker lender in the nation...

G-fees were tapped in a recent highway transportation bill, but eventually the language was stripped from the measure…

ARM activity continues to be low at just 6.1 percent of new applications.

So, whatever happened to Beach Point Capital’s $70 million subprime MBS? Sources contend the deal is very close with strong investor interest...