GSE principal reduction could end up saving the government money but its reach to additional distressed borrowers would be limited, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office. Expanding Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s loan modification policy to include principal forgiveness under the current Home Affordable Modification Program would probably generate fewer than 60,000 additional modifications, concluded the CBO report published last week.
The overall picture for mortgage delinquency and foreclosure activity generally is continuing to improve, despite some bumps in the road in a number of states. The mortgage delinquency rate increased to a seasonally adjusted rate of 7.25 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2013 – up 16 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2013, but down 15 basis points from one year ago, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest National Delinquency Survey, released late this week ...
Democrats are happy, but not quite content, with President Obama’s long-awaited action last week to send the name of Rep. Mel Watt, D-NC, to the Senate as the White House’s nominee for director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Prominent progressives are doubling down by demanding that Edward DeMarco, the FHFA’s long-standing but embattled acting director, be dispatched out of office by the president forthwith. Freshman Senator and one-time Consumer Financial Protection Bureau architect Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, D, lauded Watt’s nomination, then immediately demanded that Obama appoint a new FHFA acting director in the interim.
AIG and its mortgage insurance subsidiary United Guaranty Corp. are combining their investment expertise and knowledge of the mortgage market to purchase residential whole loan mortgages as investments. The initiative is in a pilot phase and limited in scope, according to UGC executives. Closed loans will be purchased individually from correspondent lenders and held in portfolio. There are no plans for direct lending or securitization, executives added. Loans targeted for purchase will be subject to ...
One of the things that is unusual about this housing recovery is the extent to which it has been supported by investors – and not just individuals looking for rental property. Institutional investors have jumped into the rental home market in a way not seen before, and that is benefitting some industries you might not expect, or in ways you may not have anticipated. “In traditional housing recoveries, individuals and households provide the bulk of the demand the market needs to rebound,” said ...
Officials at Ocwen Financial were highly critical of the accounting methods used by other servicers that have acquired significant holdings of mortgage servicing rights recently. Ocwen might also soon have more cash than necessary for its planned acquisition opportunities, with officials considering initiating a stock buyback. William Erbey, Ocwen’s chairman, said his company is considerably less leveraged than other servicers. He noted that Ocwen carries most of its MSRs at market value rather than ...
Sixty-five percent of real estate agents would be more willing to recommend a lender if they were provided a mobile “app” to track the status of scheduled mortgage closings, according to a new survey by Campbell Surveys and Inside Mortgage Finance Publications. “Most lenders today are not keeping us advised of the status of the loan and, more frustrating, they are requiring additional documents piecemeal,” according to one real estate agent that responded to the survey. “Instead of a ...
Private mortgage insurers lost a little collective market share to the FHA and VA during the first quarter, although that may have been simply a timing distortion, according to a new market analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. The more groundbreaking news is that the surviving private MIs, as a group, probably turned a profit during the first quarter of 2013. The four publicly traded companies reported a combined loss on their domestic MI business of just $14.6 million during the first quarter of 2013. Essent Guaranty, the fifth-largest MI in terms of new business, is...
Total primary mortgage insurance coverage provided by private MIs fell 6.5 percent to $50.44 billion in the first quarter, a figure that includes HARP loans.
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