“To hedge, or not to hedge” sounds like something William Shakespeare might have written if he were around today making mortgages...

Altisource Residential plans to recycle NPL money into investments of “pools of stabilized rental homes at attractive yields.”

Investor Unite’s Tim Pagliara said that a stay would prejudice him under Virginia law, where the case is to be “expedited” and could be resolved on the merits…

Is there a future for “marketplace” lenders in mortgage banking? Opinions can differ…

Are P2P firms a fad?

A surge of new refinance business and a seasonal uptick in purchase-mortgage activity helped lift agency issuance of single-family MBS in April, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae produced $108.95 billion of new single-family MBS last month, the strongest monthly output since September 2015. Gross new issuance was up 9.8 percent from March, but on a year-to-date basis, production was still down 3.9 percent from the volume generated in the first four months of 2015. Ginnie saw...[Includes two data tables]

Banks generally eased their lending standards for most types of residential mortgage loans in the first quarter of 2016, even as consumer demand for such credit increased, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest senior loan officer opinion survey. During the period ending March 31, a “moderate net fraction” of banks reported having eased standards on mortgages eligible for purchase by the government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, while a similar number of institutions indicated they had eased standards on “qualified mortgage” and non-QM jumbo mortgages, as well as on QM non-jumbo, non-GSE-eligible and on non-QM, non-jumbo residential mortgage loans. At the same time, banks left...

Private shareholder lawsuits against the U.S. Treasury’s net worth sweep of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac profits are inching forward, including a squabble over the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s bid to consolidate several cases in one court. The Federal Housing Finance Agency said the proposed transfer would prevent future “copycat” cases and ensure a more consistent ruling across the board by having all of the cases heard in one court instead of scattered in different jurisdictions throughout the country. Private plaintiffs, including Tim Pagliara, director of shareholder group Investors Unite, filed...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac trimmed their retained mortgage investment portfolios in the first quarter of 2016 by a combined 2.8 percent. The Federal Housing Finance Agency directed the government-sponsored enterprises to wind down their portfolios by 15 percent each year until they reach $250 billion by 2018. At the end of the first quarter, Fannie’s mortgage-related investment portfolio dropped to $332.6 billion, a 3.6 percent decline from December 2015. The biggest drop was in the GSE’s non-agency MBS holdings, which fell 21.3 percent in the first quarter to just $13.3 billion, roughly one tenth the amount held back in the heyday of the subprime and Alt A MBS markets. Fannie plans...[Includes one data table]

Lenders are getting more comfortable with originating non-qualified mortgages, particularly as opportunities to complete refinances decline. Non-QMs accounted for 14.0 percent of mortgages originated by 159 banks in 2015, up from a 10.0 percent share of originations the previous year, according to a survey by the American Bankers Association. “More banks are adjusting underwriting criteria to target selected non-QM loan opportunities,” the trade group said. The ABA found...