Lawmakers who scheduled a hearing about a month ago to discuss oversight of the Federal Housing Finance Agency instead found themselves questioning FHFA Director Mel Watt about sexual harassment claims by one of his employees. During the day-long House Financial Services Committee hearing, which included his accuser Simone Grimes, FHFA Inspector General Laura Wertheimer, and the GSE CEOs, Watt fought back against the allegations. He painted his relationship with Grimes as a mentor/mentee-type interaction and questioned the committee’s decision to even allow Grimes to use that forum when she has a lawsuit pending. But Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, who admitted to having a close friendship with Watt, said, “It’s a new...

Commercial banks and savings institutions valued their mortgage-servicing rights at historically high levels at the end of the second quarter, even as industry leaders continued to pull back from the sector. A new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call-report data reveals that the industry serviced $3.563 trillion of single-family mortgages for other investors, usually loans held in mortgage-backed securities trusts. The industry total servicing for others was down ... [Includes one data chart]

After much anticipation from the mortgage insurance industry, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac released their updated requirements that private MIs must meet to be eligible to provide mortgage insurance on GSE loans. This is the first time the requirements have been revised since being introduced in 2015.Dubbed PMIERs 2.0, the new private mortgage insurance eligibility requirements will go into effect in March 2019. They serve as a way for Fannie and Freddie to better manage counterparty risks by detailing financial and operational eligibility requirements that private mortgage insurers need to meet, especially as PMIs play a large role in high loan-to-value lending.

Freddie Mac has racked up between three and five servicing-financing transactions with nonbank agency seller-servicers, according to investment bankers familiar with the arrangements. As for the details regarding the deals, Freddie isn’t talking and neither are any of its clients involved in the pilot. The only firm identified by sources thus far as talking to the GSE about a line of credit collateralized by mortgage servicing rights is United Shore Financial, the parent of the nation’s largest table-funder of loan brokers, United Wholesale Mortgage, Troy, MI. The UWM LOC is sized at roughly $55 million, sources told Inside The GSEs. Both Freddie and UWM declined to comment.

State-licensed mortgage lenders originated $239.70 billion of home mortgages in the second quarter of this year, according to nonbank mortgage call report figures compiled by the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System. The sector posted an 18.9 percent increase in origination volume from the first three months of the year, slightly more than the 17.1 percent rise in total first-lien originations over that period. As a result, the nonbank share of new production ... [Includes two data charts]

The Money Source hopes to double its volume of subservicing contracts to almost $8.0 billion by yearend, capitalizing on what it feels is an underserved market: Smaller clients that don’t receive hands-on service from the giants of the industry, namely Cenlar and Dovenmuehle. At least that’s the view from TMS President Ali Vafai, who says there’s a huge “void” of subservicers that can effectively handle high-touch product, especially Ginnie Mae receivables. “The problem is that some Ginnie subservicers ...

Two new mortgage underwriting solutions designed to help lenders streamline their current mortgage workflows and reduce cost, as well as enable them to assist non-prime borrowers to obtain home loans, have hit the market. CoreLogic’s AutomatIQ Borrower streamlines underwriting by digitizing, standardizing and automating borrower analysis and verification. The tool bridges the gap between point-of-sale and underwriting to create a smoothly running mortgage origination process ...

Lenders looking for efficiencies should adopt artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain, according to various technology vendors. They claim that the technology can be implemented without exceptionally high costs but caution that early adopters face some risks. AI is generally defined as a collection of machine-learning algorithms assembled for certain tasks. Blockchain is distributed ledger technology. The tech was an area of focus at the ABS East conference ...

Commercial banks and savings institutions repurchased only $422.7 million of single-family mortgages during the second quarter of 2018, according to an analysis of call-report data by Inside Mortgage Trends. It was the lowest three-month repurchase total for the industry since regulators began collecting this data back in 2008. Repurchases, including other indemnification for investor losses, were down 42.3 percent from the first quarter. The call-report figures ... [Includes one data chart]

The Federal Home Loan Banks reported a record $736.70 billion of advances outstanding at the end of June, rebounding from a sharp decline during the first quarter of the year. Outstanding advances at the midyear point were up 5.4 percent from March even though the volume of new advances originated fell 5.9 percent during that period. Still, advance originations exceeded the repayment of existing loans, which declined ... [Includes two data charts}