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.
Fannie Mae is set to "give back" $50.6 billion to the U.S. Treasury by June 30, thanks to stellar earnings and accounting treatment of deferred tax assets.
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their government overseer are considering adding new features to the common securitization platform in addition to the major components in the initial design, according to officials speaking at the Mortgage Bankers Association Secondary Market Conference in New York this week. A potential addition to the project would include “life flow data” about the mortgage transaction, said Manoj Singh, associate director in the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Strategic Initiatives. The common securitization platform, or CSP, has been focused on the securitization function, but feedback from the industry has raised the prospect of expanding it to house all the data points that could be needed over the life of the loan, including foreclosure disposition, if it comes to that. Once the government-sponsored enterprises start...
Most mortgage industry observers expect the Federal Housing Finance Agency to raise Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guaranty fees by about 20 basis points this year, but many are convinced that the impact on market practices may be bigger than the magnetic effect on private capital. The FHFA has said it wants to raise g-fees to the point that private capital comes into the market, according to Paul Mullins, a senior vice president and interim head of single-family at Freddie Mac. During remarks at the secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association this week, he said “The odds are reasonably good you will see higher guaranty fees.” Already around 50 bps and twice their historic level, the fees charged...
The mortgage industry has a window of opportunity to improve the secondary market without having to wait years for Congress to deal with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to the leadership of the Mortgage Bankers Association, which this week announced a three-prong agenda that doesn’t depend on new legislation. The conservatorships of the two government-sponsored enterprises, which will be five years old in October, were intended to be a short “time out,” and there is still no endgame in sight or any plan for transition, said MBA President and CEO David Stevens, during the group’s secondary market conference in New York this week. Stevens outlined...
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