In the ongoing Fairholme Funds v. The United States case, Judge Margaret Sweeney recently denied Fannie Mae’s motion to quash or invalidate a subpoena issued by the plaintiff’s counsel. As part of the discovery phase, Fairholme Funds asked that Egbert Perry, appointed chairman of the noard of Fannie in 2014 and board member since 2008, be called to testify in the case. In the motion, Fannie and Perry argued that based upon the discovery conducted so far, deposing Perry is “unnecessary and burdensome.” The court rejected that and other arguments made to relieve Perry of testifying. In the November order, Judge Sweeney said that the court permitted discovery in this case to ensure that plaintiffs would have every opportunity to...

Mortgage lenders repurchased $434.2 million of home loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the third quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of securities disclosures made by the two government-sponsored enterprises. That was the lowest quarterly repurchase total since the GSEs, and other “asset securitizers,” began filing disclosures mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act with the Securities and Exchange Commission ... [Includes two data charts]

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw a huge drop in new single-family business in November, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis of loan-level mortgage-backed securities data. The two companies produced just $50.94 billion of new single-family MBS last month, a 25.2 percent decline from October’s level. November 2015 was the slowest month in GSE MBS issuance since May 2014. MBS issuance was down 30.6 percent at Fannie and off 17.4 percent at Freddie. The sharp drop in monthly production had a distinctly seasonal tone. GSE securitization of purchase mortgages fell a whopping 33.2 percent from October to November, and purchase mortgages accounted for less than half of Fannie/Freddie business last month.

Among the regulatory initiatives underway at the Securities and Exchange Commission is a potential crack-down on conflicts of interest at credit rating agencies. In the SEC’s latest regulatory agenda, the agency noted that its Office of Credit Ratings is “considering recommending that the commission propose rules and amendments designed to address the conflicts of interest associated with the issuer-pay business model.” In other words, at issue is...

American Homes 4 Rent, the largest publicly traded player in the single-family rental market, late this week agreed to buy American Residential Properties in a deal valued at $1.5 billion. It was the second transaction involving real estate investment trusts in the SFR sector within three months, and has sparked talk of further consolidation, including perhaps mortgage REITs. A research note from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, penned right before the AH4R-ARP combination was unveiled, noted that mergers in the space are possible “given current valuation discounts ….” In other words, the share prices of single-family rental REITs have been...

Some market analysts see an investment opportunity brewing in subprime auto ABS in the coming year, despite increasing regulatory attention. But certain rating analysts are emphasizing the rising losses the sector has been seeing for the last few months, and a few contrarians think the market is either poised to enter bubble territory or is already there. Consumer ABS analysts at Wells Fargo Securities are recommending subprime auto subordinated bonds rated BBB, convinced they offer good value on a risk-adjusted basis. With spreads set to finish 2015 at historically wide levels (excluding the financial crisis), the analysts expect...

An increase in interest rates by the Federal Reserve is likely to be accompanied by a change to a Fed program that could have a significant impact on investors’ cost to finance purchases of MBS, according to industry analysts. The Fed could increase interest rates as soon as Dec. 16. In a report released this week, analysts at Deutsche Bank Securities noted that Fed officials have discussed removing a cap on the Fed’s overnight reverse-repurchase program when interest rates increase. “That program will almost surely put...

Are some mortgage underwriters using Facebook information to underwrite their credits? We heard one interesting story this past week...

Morningstar Credit Ratings proposed new criteria this week to rate residential MBS. The rating service published similar criteria in May but Morningstar has only rated one deal backed by new residential mortgages since then. The biggest addition in the proposed criteria details how Morningstar plans to handle transactions that include primary mortgage insurance. The provision could help Morningstar rate risk-sharing transactions from the government-sponsored enterprises. The rating service said...