The underwriting characteristics on the latest risk-sharing transaction from Freddie Mac have loosened somewhat compared with previous Structured Agency Credit Risk deals, prompting default expectations well above those projected for recently issued jumbo MBS. However, the government-sponsored enterprises’ risk-sharing transactions are still seen as good investments and investor demand has been strong. Freddie is preparing to sell a total of $966.0 million in three tranches to investors based on a reference pool with an unpaid principal balance of $28.15 billion. The deal priced this week. Freddie said more than 75 investors bought in and the deal was oversubscribed. The top tranche on STACR 2014-DN2 available for sale to investors is set...
New residential MBS issuance in the first three months of 2014 sank to the lowest quarterly volume since late in 2000, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. A total of $191.7 billion of residential MBS were issued in the first quarter of this year, down 25.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2013. Compared to first quarter of 2013, new MBS issuance was down 59.2 percent. MBS production has been falling...[Includes two data charts]
The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s annual “performance goal” scorecard for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has been issued to the two government-sponsored enterprises for comment and likely will be released by month’s end, according to industry officials briefed on the matter. But as for its contents going forward, that’s a different matter entirely. The 2013 version set forth...
Hisey, a former Fannie Mae executive, has been given the title of chief strategy and external affairs officer, a newly created position at the nonbank lender/servicer.
Rep. Maxine Waters’ housing finance reform legislation may go nowhere in the House, but parts of it could be taken up by members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee who so far have not signed on with the bipartisan reform bill that’s to be marked up at the end of April. The California Democrat’s bill differs from the Senate bill in two key ways: it requires that the private market take a smaller first-loss position in a future government-insured program for mortgage-backed securities, and it sets up a lender-owned cooperative as the sole issuer of the new MBS. The bill pushed by Sens. Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Mike Crapo, R-ID, would require...
Loss-mitigation activity by major bank servicers has decreased significantly in the past year, coinciding with servicers’ completion of loss-mitigation requirements under the $25 billion national servicing settlement. Eight major banks and thrifts completed 72,466 loan modifications in the fourth quarter of 2013, a 49.5 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2012, according to a new report from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The servicers completed 60,765 foreclosures in the fourth quarter, down 42.6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012. The declines in loan mods and foreclosures by banks have outpaced...
Also, new single-family MBS production by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac plummeted 15.6 percent from February to March as the GSEs posted their lowest quarterly production total in 14 years.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is widely seen as the single most powerful, consumer-oriented regulatory agency in the nation’s history, yet it has only a fraction of the supervisory budget that the safety-and-soundness banking regulators have. So how does it prioritize its resources and activities so it can “punch above its weight class?” “The way we approach our prioritization is looking across the market, regardless of charter or type of entity, and breaking it up into different [sub]markets,” Peggy Twohig, assistant director in the CFPB’s Office of Supervision Policy, said Tuesday during a breakout session at the annual convention of the Consumer Bankers Association. “Bank, nonbank – it doesn’t matter to us. We look at where the risk to the consumer is and we try to execute our program against that.” The bureau reviews...
The nonbank servicers under scrutiny from regulators have rankings at similar levels to banks, according to an analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. And while there have been concerns about loss mitigation activity by nonbank servicers, they use loan modifications more than banks. Nationstar Mortgage, Ocwen Financial and Walter Investment Management’s Green Tree Servicing were among the 17 servicers that received a rating of at least three stars from Fannie Mae for their performance in 2013, the government-sponsored enterprise disclosed last week. Twelve unnamed servicers received ratings below three stars. Green Tree (four stars) and Nationstar (three) maintained...
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