At a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, criticized FHFA Acting Director Ed DeMarco for his plan to reduce both the conforming loan limit and the high-cost limit.
The regulatory regime currently contemplated in government-sponsored enterprise reform legislation in the Senate doesn’t go far enough, according to officials at the Federal Housing Finance Agency and others. At a hearing this week by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Alfred Pollard, general counsel at the FHFA, testified that the regulatory functions included in GSE reform legislation from Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA, should be enhanced. “Making regulatory authority clear and explicit, including where appropriate the ability to establish prudential standards, set capital requirements and take enforcement actions, would enhance...
In just a matter of days, JPMorgan Chase agreed to two separate settlements totaling $17.5 billion to resolve federal and state civil claims as well as representation and warranty and servicing claims involving residential MBS. On Nov. 19, the Department of Justice, along with other federal and state agencies, announced a $13 billion settlement with JPMorgan, which acknowledged making misrepresentations about billions of dollars in MBS sold to investors prior to Jan. 1, 2009. The settlement is said to be the largest combination of damages and civil fines for a single entity in U.S. history. Most of the damage was inflicted...
The Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing to take more cases to trial in lieu of settling, according to Mary Jo White, chair of the SEC, who prompted a change in the agency’s protocol for settling cases with no admission or denial of guilt. “In this age of diminishing trials, we at the SEC may be about to reverse the trend a bit,” White said in a speech late last week. Shortly after White took over as chair of the SEC, she said...
Nancy Handal, managing director of insurance conglomerate MetLife, oversees a $70 billion fixed-income portfolio and a $6 billion “high-yield” residential MBS opportunity fund – but has bought into just one jumbo MBS deal over the past few years. And she’s not shy about the reasons why: it’s all about disclosures. Handal is not happy about what non-agency issuers disclose and in particular she’s dismayed that MBS investors are essentially frozen out of the due-diligence process. Speaking at a housing forum sponsored by the Urban Institute and CoreLogic this week, the MetLife executive expressed...
Commercial banks continued to see their investment in residential MBS slowly evaporate during the third quarter of 2013 even though the overall market appears to finally be growing again. A new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of recently-released call report data shows that commercial banks and thrifts held a combined $1.513 trillion of residential MBS as of the end of September. That was down 1.0 percent from the end of June and represented the lowest level since the middle of 2011. Depositories and other private MBS investors have...[Includes two data charts]
According to an analysis from Inside MBS & ABS, barring a sudden, unexpected shift in strategy, the Fed by the end of this year will exceed the total MBS holdings of commercial banks and thrifts.
Retail mortgage-production units accounted for 63.0 percent of new originations during the third quarter of 2013, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. That was up slightly from a 62.8 percent retail share of new production during the second quarter, and it represented one of the highest levels of retail-channel dominance ever. The share of retail originations has soared over the past few years as many major lenders have scaled back their broker and correspondent operations. But all three production channels showed...[Includes four data charts]
Industry stakeholders called upon lawmakers to delay the implementation of hefty increases in flood-insurance premiums as a result of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Act of 2012. However, support among lawmakers for delaying the mandated changes appear to be weak. In a hearing this week in the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, Republicans and Democrats apparently were unswayed by community advocates, academics, the National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders regarding the financial pain being inflicted by the Biggert-Waters Act on homeowners. The sudden, dramatic increase in flood insurance premiums – some by as much as 1,000 percent – are leaving...
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