The stars appear to be aligning for a wave of refinance activity in the first quarter, which is expected to boost the revenues and results for U.S. mortgage companies during the period, according to an analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods. Can it last? “With the 10-year [Treasury] now below 2 percent, the average effective conforming rate is below 4 percent,” analyst Bose George said during a recent KBW podcast. “That rate should continue to trend down as long as ...

With interest rates at exceptionally low levels in recent years, borrowers have been reluctant to choose adjustable-rate mortgages. For those opting for ARMs, hybrids remain the most popular, according to results from the annual ARM survey recently released by Freddie Mac. ARMs accounted for 4.6 percent of the $921.72 billion in mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae in 2014 ... [Includes one data chart]

Titan Capital Solutions has branched out from its jumbo correspondent investor niche into the scratch-and-dent market to take advantage of new business opportunities arising from repurchase demands and loans that aren’t qualified mortgages. The Denver-based correspondent investor has begun purchasing loans rejected by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and private investors due to information, document and compliance errors. Historically, “scratch-and-dent” ...

Regional banks are reporting significant declines in mortgage-banking income during the fourth quarter, although nearly all institutions continue to earn a profit from the business. A diverse group of 20 regional banks posted a combined $684.2 million in mortgage-banking income for the fourth quarter of 2014, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports. That was down 13.5 percent from the group’s aggregate $790.5 million in ...

Mortgage vendors usually see their fortunes rise and fall based on loan origination volume, but don’t tell that to DocMagic, which is consolidating its hold in the document preparation business. In a year in which residential production fell 34 percent, the Torrance, CA-based DocMagic grew its client base to 7,500, a gain of 1,000 in just over 12 months. The privately held doc prep/software company doesn’t generally disclose revenue figures, but according to ...

Three pools of seriously delinquent mortgages with a total unpaid principal balance of $410 million will be auctioned off by Freddie Mac. The delinquent pools, with unpaid principal balances of $160 million, $141 million and $109 million, will be offered through Mission Capital Advisors, the broker in the deal, according to a Bloomberg report. Competitive bidding will end on Feb. 4. A large chunk of the loans are two years past due, the report noted. Freddie spokesman Tom Fitzgerald declined to provide further details, saying information at this stage of the deal is provided solely to prospective bidders. He said details on the results will be provided after auction. The transaction is the second of such sales for Freddie in ...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s diversity record at senior-level positions has improved, but remains far more wanting among mid-level management positions, according to a report by the agency’s Office of the Inspector General. An OIG analysis of FHFA data showed that the percentage of minorities and women in senior positions at the agency increased from 2011 to 2013. In addition, promotions of minorities at the senior level also increased over the same period. The report further found that the share of women at mid-level positions also rose during the same timeframe. However, the percentage of minorities in these positions remained unchanged, it noted. The OIG conducted a review of diversity and related workplace issues within the FHFA from March through ...

Fannie Mae’s risk-sharing business had a gang-buster year in 2014, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency set a higher goal for the GSE in 2015. “Certainly we were very pleased with where we were able to take the program last year,” said Laurel Davis, Fannie vice president for credit risk transfer, in an interview with Inside The GSEs. “If you think about 2013, our goal then was to just launch something and to test the market and see what would happen.” The plan for 2014 was “to establish a regular pattern of issuance with the market,” Davis said. “Even though we had a good amount of issuance last year, obviously the program itself is still in its infancy. So our ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have filed notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission warning that they might not be able to pay “deferred” compensation to executives if the GSEs fail to meet their 2015 conservatorship scorecard goals. Fannie, for instance, notes that the Federal Housing Finance Agency “will have the primary role” in determining whether the mortgage giant achieved its goals.None of the potentially affected executives are named in the separate SEC filings of the two. One former GSE regulator had this to say on the matter: “The purpose of the conservatorship scorecard is to drive performance. They are tied directly to GSE executive compensation.” According to the recently released 2015 scorecard, performance is based on a variety ...

Despite heavy volume in new single-family business in recent years, there has been little growth in the outstanding volume of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac servicing. GSE single-family servicing peaked at $4.794 trillion back in 2009. Up until 2014, refinance activity accounted for over 70 percent of Fannie/Freddie new business; there was a lot of churning in GSE servicing rights but a net decline in outstanding volume. The rebound in purchase-mortgage lending last year began to turn that around. A new Inside The GSEs analysis of Fannie and Freddie mortgage-backed securities disclosures shows total single-family servicing grew modestly in both the third and fourth quarters of 2014. The analysis shows a total of $3.956 trillion of single-family servicing at the ...