The Senate this week confirmed Brian Montgomery as the next FHA commissioner and assistant secretary of housing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

It doesn’t look likely that the Federal Housing Finance Agency is going to take up a call by community mortgage lenders to look into allegedly unfair volume discounts made by private mortgage insurers to large mortgage lenders.

Tax reform legislation enacted near the end of 2017 will likely lead to lower home prices and provide homeowners with more money to spend on housing, according to a study by Hal Martin, a policy economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

The FHFA said reviews have helped align GSE prepayment speeds in the past few years while helping to make sure MBS investors’ interest are considered in the equation.

Chase is the top contributor to the MBS with a 45.0 percent share, followed by United Shore Financial Services at 16.5 percent and Caliber Home Mortgage at 5.2 percent.

Applications for purchase mortgages and refinances both declined.

House Republicans, who previously said the Senate bill didn’t go far enough, said they will have a separate reg relief package to be considered by the Senate.

Mike Crapo, R-ID, chairman of the committee, said housing finance reform is one of his top priorities.

Respondents to the Mortgage Bankers Association's quarterly mortgage banking performance survey reported, in aggregate, a negative margin in the “mid to high single digits” for the first quarter.

Most of the decline in FHA business was in purchase-mortgage lending while VA business took a hit due to reductions in the Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan program.