When rates rise, loan officers begin to bite their nails, unless they are heavily reliant on purchase-money loans.

The Corker-Warner GSE bill could see the light of day next Tuesday. Meanwhile, HLSS is selling more shares to the public.

Some industry experts say mortgage executives will not feel safe about originating – or securitizing – more than a miniscule amount of non-agency loans until the government stops taking “retribution” against the housing finance industry for the sins of the housing bust. Lewis Ranieri, who helped launched the mortgage-backed security business, said the biggest victims of the mortgage crisis are minority borrowers and young workers who no longer qualify for credit because of tight underwriting guidelines promulgated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since they went into conservatorship back in September 2008. But tight underwriting isn’t the sole problem, Ranieri argued...

Mortgage lenders that sell loans to the government-sponsored enterprises are seeing a significant increase in the volume of buyback reviews on recently originated mortgages, according to a new analysis of repurchase activity disclosures by Inside Mortgage Trends, an affiliated newsletter. Through the first three months of 2013, GSE sellers had already repurchased some $80.6 million of loans securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during 2012. That was more than double the volume of repurchases of mortgages originated in 2011. Loan quality didn’t deteriorate...

Fannie Mae’s “bifurcated” mortgage program that allows lenders to get a better price for selling their mortgage servicing rights while retaining representations and warranties tied to origination and sale to the government-sponsored enterprise has been gathering momentum over the past six months. According to servicing advisors, the effort has played an important role in returning liquidity to the MSR market, especially for medium-sized lenders that lived in fear of buybacks and headaches tied to representations and warranties. “The program is...

Investors have significantly reduced their home-purchase activity in recent months, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. Current homeowners and first-time homebuyers have filled the void and are much more likely to finance a home purchase with a mortgage compared to investors. Investors accounted for 20.2 percent of home purchases in May, based on the three-month moving average, the third consecutive decline in investor share. Market share for both current homeowners and first-time homebuyers increased in recent months, with current homeowners accounting for 43.8 percent of home purchases in May. The trends present...

OneWest Bank’s decision to sell $78 billion in unpaid principal balance of mortgage servicing rights and related servicing advance receivables to Ocwen Financial continues the trend of banks unloading servicing with special servicers. However, the deal is unique in that OneWest’s owners have been looking to cash out of the entire banking operation for a while. Ocwen announced late last week that it will buy the MSRs and servicing advance receivables for $2.53 billion, with the sale expected to close in stages this year. “We have entered into a definitive agreement with Ocwen Loan Servicing to sell our third-party mortgage servicing rights for forward mortgages in order to sharpen our focus on developing a leading regional banking franchise,” said Joseph Otting, president and CEO of OneWest. The bank was...

The chief enforcer of a massive settlement involving five top servicers portrayed the results of the most recent round of compliance testing as confirmation of issues that need to be “rectified” and the need for holding servicers accountable. Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said the failure of the five servicers on eight compliance tests shows that “abuses shamefully endure.” He put the companies on notice that they would face monetary penalties if they don’t comply. The report from the Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight did show...

Mortgage lending industry representatives were unanimous in their view that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay rule and “qualified mortgage” standard, as currently constituted, may severely restrict access to mortgage credit on multiple levels. Testifying earlier this week before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, James Gardill, chairman of the board of WesBanco, Inc., said on behalf of the American Bankers Association that the QM rule will limit mortgage lending because the QM guidelines narrow lending parameters. “Even within the QM framework, many concerns remain that could limit credit availability to a diverse group of consumers,” Gardill said. Debra Still, chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be wound down and terminated in the housing finance system of the future that combines greater private sector participation with a clearly delineated emergency government backstop, according to a reform plan released this week by four industry experts. Sponsored by the Milken Institute, the Urban Institute and Moody’s Analytics, the “Pragmatic Plan for Housing Finance Reform” would see the government play an “explicit and transparent” role to cover catastrophic losses but with an emphasis on mortgage funding diversity. The authors envision...