Edward Pinto, former chief credit officer of Fannie Mae who now studies housing trends for AEI, disputes NAR’s data and describes the first-time buyer market as “booming.”
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae produced just $86.69 billion of single-family MBS during November, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. Last month’s production was down 19.1 percent from October’s volume and represented the weakest issuance since the agency MBS market started to take off in February of this year. All three agencies saw...[Includes two data tables]
Fleig said Fannie’s new policy has prompted some questions as industry participants haven’t seen a draft of the subordination agreement seller/servicers will have to sign.
The refinance market was soft as well. The agencies securitized $37.48 billion of refinance loans during November, down 12.3 percent from the previous month.
Mortgage delinquency rates rose modestly during the third quarter of 2015 as foreclosure rates continued to improve, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance Large Servicer Delinquency Index. Some 5.85 percent of the $5.477 trillion of home loans covered in the survey were in some stage of default as of the end of September. That was up from 5.70 percent in the second quarter. All of the increase came in the two least-severe categories of default. The Mortgage Bankers Association last week reported...
Combining the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program and the traditional forward mortgage program in assessing the soundness of the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund could produce inaccurate results and ill-advised policy changes, warned the Urban Institute. Analysts at the institute said the FHA’s basis for assessing the MMI Fund’s solvency creates a distorted picture of the value of the fund and that the agency should separately assess its forward and reverse mortgage businesses to get an accurate picture of their performance and impact on the fund. The FY 2015 actuarial report drew...
Although most of the heavy lifting in writing new rules for the mortgage industry has passed, federal regulators still have some significant projects in the works, according to recently released semiannual regulatory agendas. The Federal Housing Finance Agency expects to release a proposed “duty-to-serve” regulation for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the end of this year. The rulemaking was mandated by the 2008 Housing and Economic Recovery Act but hasn’t gotten much attention since the agency published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking back in August 2009. The FHFA is...
Fannie Mae last week updated its policies to allow seller/servicers to pledge a transfer of interest in their servicing income as collateral. Now Fannie, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae have three different approaches for the pledge of servicing income and/or servicing advances. David Fleig, president and CEO of MorVest Capital, an investment firm, noted that the update by Fannie follows a move by Ginnie. Last year, Ginnie started allowing issuers to pledge servicing income without notifying Ginnie. Fannie’s new policy requires...
Wells Fargo is reportedly under investigation for a practice that banks across the industry have relied on for years: cross-selling financial products to their customers. Big banks have been particularly upfront about how they see jumbo mortgages originated for portfolio as a way to cross-sell other products. Cross-selling financial products occurred without much regulatory scrutiny until a lawsuit by the Los Angeles City Attorney in May. LA City Attorney Mike Feuer alleged that Wells’ cross-selling activities violated California’s unfair competition law. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco are also reportedly investigating Wells’ cross-selling. Feuer alleged...
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