Now that the smoke has cleared from Mark Calabria’s confirmation hearing to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, industry stakeholders are pondering the first step in administrative reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: eliminating the quarterly payments the two mortgage giants make to the Treasury Department.
Pershing Square Holdings — the high-profile hedge fund managed by mega investor Bill Ackman — is sitting on a paper gain of 140.6% year-to-date on its investment in Fannie Mae common. Its holdings in Freddie Mac aren’t too far behind at 130.2%.
Mortgage brokers aren’t taking over the world, but the industry’s share of new production reached a nine-year high in 2018, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. [Includes six data charts.]
GM Financial’s new auto lease securitization deal is weighted toward shorter-term maturities, likely to combat volatility in the auto market, such as falling prices of used cars.
Morningstar Credit Ratings plans to increase the types of assets it will consider for credit ratings. This month, it published proposed rating methodologies for MBS backed by reverse mortgages and cash flows from Property Assessed Clean Energy assessments on residential properties.
Ginnie Mae is in the early stages of developing stress tests for its MBS issuers to ensure they have enough liquidity to withstand adverse economic conditions.
Through the first two months of 2019, the nation’s mortgage-investing real estate investment trusts have rolled out plans to raise a combined $1.92 billion by selling additional shares of common to the public, according to offering documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the Investment Company Institute, in a joint letter, urged the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department to clarify certain diversification requirements under the single security initiative.
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