Then again, there are doubts the legislation will ever be enacted.

Five Oaks’ jumbo conduit also has faced headwinds due to a lack of demand for new jumbo MBS.

Private equity firms, of course, are not known for holding their investments forever.

Prestwick is out with a flow package that could yield $360 million to $480 million annually in Fannie Mae product.

The supply of home loan debt outstanding grew for a third straight quarter in late 2015, including an ongoing ride higher in un-securitized portfolio mortgages. The Federal Reserve reported that $9.986 trillion of home mortgages were outstanding at the end of last year, a 0.3 percent increase from the third quarter. The growth rate slowed a bit – the market grew by roughly twice that rate from March to September – but the fourth quarter put unpaid home mortgage debt up 1.0 percent from the end of 2014, the first annual increase since 2007. The single fastest-growing segment of the market continued...[Includes two data tables]

Firms that specialize in subservicing increased their contracts by 2.7 percent in the fourth quarter and by 21.3 percent from a year ago, according to a new tally from Inside Mortgage Finance. In general, the outlook for the sector is strong, but a handful of firms aren’t growing their business by very much. And one firm – Ocwen Financial – experienced a large decline in contracts during the period. At yearend, Ocwen subserviced...[Includes one data table]

Don't like the housing sales figures? Blame Trump and Bernie...

Within the next 30 days, the Federal Housing Finance Agency will put to rest its long-running deliberations over whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will allow principal reductions for certain distressed home mortgages. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the agency has already made the decision to go ahead with the plan on a limited basis. But in remarks at a public forum in Washington, DC, this week, FHFA Director Mel Watt said the agency is still mulling it over. Watt said...

A number of home buyers have been duped by hackers in an e-mail and money wiring scam involving purchase mortgages, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC posted a warning about scammers “phishing” for settlement fees late last week. In a phishing scheme, fraudsters impersonate a business online in an effort to trick a consumer. “Hackers have been breaking...

When it comes to attracting and retaining top loan originator talent in the era of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, it looks like independent shops may be the game to beat. One key issue now is whether depository institutions will step up to compete for the top talent in the mortgage space. “If we look back to 2008-2009, the brokers fled as quickly as they could to the independents, the depositories, just everywhere they could, to be able to operate and manage their business,” Drew Waterhouse, managing director of Hammerhouse LLC, said during an Inside Mortgage Finance webinar late last week. As the playing field has become more level with all the different regulations that have been brought to bear since then, “you see...