One webinar panelist noted: "It reconfigures every disclosure that we had before."

The proposed ban is coming under heavy fire from different factions of the mortgage industry, including the Council of Federal Home Loan Banks, REITs and even private investors that own mortgage stocks.

The recent adoption by the Securities and Exchange Commission of its Regulation AB II disclosure rule is expected to be a “credit positive” for the auto loan and lease ABS sector, but it probably will also raise costs for market participants and, ultimately, consumers, according to an industry consensus of the new rule. The new regulatory regime mandates standardized loan-level disclosures for ABS backed by auto loans and leases, as well as other classes, as reported previously. The loan-level data have to be provided on the SEC’s free online database known as the EDGAR system. Although specific data requirements vary by asset class, the new asset-level disclosures generally will include...

Ranieri and Goodman are worried that the creation of a single GSE security could morph into a drawn out and multi-year process.

Investors are paying up for distressed mortgages these days, fueling talk that the market might see more in the way of securitizations. “Buyers of non-performing loans want to securitize,” said Brian Dunn, senior vice president of MountainView Capital Group. “They like the [real estate mortgage investment conduit] structure.” According to Dunn, the securitization of nonperforming mortgages “has taken off...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s “single security” proposal for generic Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MBS is “well-thought out” and “worthy of serious consideration,” but the agency should pick up the pace in its implementation to avoid making the solution part of the problem, according to a paper by the Urban Institute. Laurie Goodman, director of the UI’s Housing Policy Center, and Lewis Ranieri, chairman of Ranieri Partners, expressed concern that the FHFA “may be contemplating a slower pace in the project than it warrants.” The FHFA last month issued...

Six years after the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the former regulator of the government-sponsored enterprises noted that the housing finance system has made “significant progress.” But even as critical structural changes are underway, comprehensive improvement is still several years out. In a policy paper issued last week, Edward DeMarco – new senior fellow-in-residence for the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets – said that house prices, as measured by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, have recovered more than 50 percent since their decline in 2007. “While the damage from the housing crisis has been substantial, we are finally seeing...

As written, the proposed rules from the FHFA could cause mortgage insurance premiums to spike.

The days of the megabanks – Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America – buying mortgage companies (of any size) are over. Never again. Right?...

A wide range of mortgage industry participants cautioned the Federal Housing Finance Agency that increasing the guaranty fees charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac won’t necessarily prompt an increase in non-agency activity. In June, the FHFA solicited public input about what g-fee level would prompt investors in non-agency mortgage-backed securities to find it profitable to enter the market or prompt banks to hold conforming-balance mortgages in portfolio. “Policymakers should not assume that increases in g-fees alone will lead to a significant increase in private-label securities issuance,” said the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, which stressed that a number of factors beyond the pricing of agency mortgages are limiting non-agency activity.