Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued to reduce their retained mortgage portfolios during the third quarter by a combined $35.2 billion, a period in which Fannie reported a $2.2 billion gain in earnings while Freddie suffered a $475 million loss. Freddie Mac noted that its investments in less liquid assets were $114.2 billion at the end of the quarter, down 8 percent or $10.1 billion from the second quarter. The government-sponsored enterprise attributed this to its ongoing portfolio liquidation and the sales of $3.4 billion of non-agency MBS. Freddie also securitized $4.0 billion of single-family re-performing and modified loans. Since being placed in conservatorship, Fannie and Freddie have been...[Includes one data table]
The Structured Finance Industry Group and Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association plan to file a “friend of the court” brief with the Supreme Court of the United States in support of a defendant in a case affecting consumer ABS – the severity of which is a matter of debate. In the case of Madden v. Midland Funding, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals back in May determined that a debt buyer who purchased defaulted credit card accounts from a national bank is not entitled to collect interest under the National Bank Act at the rate set in the cardholder agreement. About a month later, SFIG and SIFMA filed...
New agency issuance of single-family MBS declined in October as a result of a slowdown in the purchase-mortgage market, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae issued a total of $107.19 billion of single-family MBS last month, a 5.6 percent slip from September’s volume. The flow of purchase mortgages securitized by the three agencies was down 9.6 percent for the month, while refinance volume was up 2.6 percent in October. Some of the strength in refi activity is...[Includes two data tables]
A helpful piece of advice: MSA participants should avoid entering into agreements that provide for exclusivity, such as being named a preferred lender.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reported a combined $1.485 billion in net income for the third quarter of 2015, a hefty 83.1 percent decline from the previous period. While Fannie reported its 15th consecutive profitable quarter ($1.96 billion in net income), Freddie posted its first loss ($475 million) in four years. Don Layton, Freddie’s CEO, said that earnings volatility “stems from our usage of derivatives to hedge interest rate risks and accounting mismatches associated with the activity. This quarter showed a continuation of that volatility as the accounting mismatch produced a negative $1.5 billion [generally accepted accounting principles] earnings, which was enough to tip us into the comprehensive income loss of about $500 million for the quarter. “Utilizing a derivatives hedging strategy can result...
The baseline $417,000 conforming loan limit is almost certain to remain unchanged in 2016, according to an Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of key house-price trends. The Federal Housing Finance Agency recently confirmed that it will use the seasonally-adjusted “expanded data” house-price index as the yardstick for determining whether increases should be made to the $417,000 baseline, which has been in place for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac business since 2006. As of the second quarter of 2015, the most recent data available, the HPI reading was...
Marketing services agreements aren’t outlawed – yet. But given that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s recent guidance on such arrangements doesn’t address the features of what an acceptable MSA would look like, it’s particularly challenging to figure out how best to proceed. Perhaps the only real way forward is to try to avoid those aspects of MSAs that the bureau has clearly identified as problematic, top industry compliance attorneys said during a webinar sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance last week. “The best we can do is...
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