A number of homebuilding firms and mortgage lenders have recently announced joint ventures or affiliated business arrangements to offer one-stop shopping for homebuyers and homeowners. 1st Alliance Lending has announced a national mortgage lending platform that would expand its ability to offer government-backed mortgage financing to underserved borrowers with tainted credit who want to purchase a home. Based in East Hartford, CT, 1st Alliance offers ...

If a borrower went shopping for a mortgage loan in 2014, he or she would have found FHA insurance costlier than private mortgage insurance even with a 20 percent downpayment, according to a new report from WalletHub, a web-based organization that monitors a variety of financial services. FHA mortgage insurance premiums have nearly doubled since 2008, when conventional loans with private MI grew scarce and FHA became the only game in town for ...

Altisource Residential and Altisource Asset Management abruptly cancelled their scheduled earnings calls this week as the firms work on modifying an asset management agreement. Both of the companies have ties to Ocwen Financial, which has faced its own operating issues in recent months. “Despite the negative headlines surrounding our primary mortgage servicer Ocwen, our performance has remained strong,” said Ashish Pandey, AR’s CEO. The real estate investment trust had ...

For the first time since the GSEs were put in government conservatorship over six years ago, the flow of new mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac accounted for less than half of primary-market production. [Includes one chart.]

Although the Federal Housing Finance Agency has tripled the targets for GSE risk transfers in 2015, Treasury officials say the program needs to evolve further and offered a number of new strategies to consider.

Ocwen Financial’s goal to eventually unload $140.5 billion of mortgage servicing rights tied to Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac loans is being aided by bifurcation agreements approved by the GSEs and their regulator, according to advisors familiar with the deals.

After four decades in its storied Wisconsin Avenue building, Fannie Mae plans to return to its much earlier roots by making downtown Washington, DC, its new corporate headquarters. The company selected the current site of The Washington Post, on 1150 15th Street, NW, as its future home in January, debunking speculations of a move to other parts of the city.

Freddie Mac saw an unusual jump in mortgage-backed securities issuance in February thanks to a huge delivery of seasoned loans from Bank of America. Freddie single-family MBS production rose 30.8 percent from January’s level to $29.91 billion, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis of loan-level data. It was the highest monthly issuance level for Freddie since August 2013. [Includes one chart.]

While most of the 18 financial institutions sued by the Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2011 have settled allegations of securities law violations, underwriting flaws and fraud related to non-agency mortgage-based securities, one bank, Nomura Holding America Inc., plans to take the case all the way to trial.

The development of the common securitization platform is in the works, but Treasury officials have a slightly different view of its implementation than does the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The FHFA said although progress on building the CSP is continuing, the agency is most focused on moving toward a single security. FHFA Director Mel Watt noted that both of the initiatives are “highly interrelated,” but he made it clear that a single security for the GSEs is a priority for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2015.