KBW: Fannie, Freddie Emerging From Conservatorship ‘Increasingly Plausible.’ The battle over the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac likely will rage on for the rest of the decade, but it’s “increasingly plausible” that the two government-controlled mortgage giants will emerge from conservatorship, according to a new report from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. However, KBW Analyst Brian Gardner readily admits that the firm is unsure “how or when” the Treasury Department or Federal Housing Finance Agency can legally take the two out of conservatorship.

The architects of the ambitious bipartisan housing-finance reform bill in the Senate have put considerable emphasis on preserving access to the new secondary-mortgage market for smaller lenders. They may not have it right yet. According to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the so-called small lender mutual envisioned by Sens. Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Mike Crapo, R-ID, would face significant challenges in a new mortgage-finance world where large institutions could vertically integrate ...

Technology vendor Ellie Mae will not compensate its mortgage customers for the recent shutdown of its loan origination software platform, which delayed closings nationwide, according to customers affected by the situation. But that doesn't mean the problem won’t cost Ellie Mae any money. During an earnings call this week, company executives said the firm will accelerate spending on technology upgrades, estimating that its total capital expenditures this year will range between ...

The GSEs continued to reduce their footprint in global debt markets during the fourth quarter of 2013, with debt outstanding and issuance down from the same period year ago. Fannie Mae’s, Freddie Mac’s and the Federal Home Loan Banks’ combined debt outstanding was $1.814 billion during the period ending Dec. 31, 2013, down 0.02 percent from the third quarter and down 2.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012. Fannie issued $45.5 billion in new debt during the fourth quarter, a 34.9 percent decrease from the third quarter.

With mortgage originations, new home sales and mortgage applications all in decline, industry representatives are scrambling to find out why. Is it rising rates? Constricted supply? Tougher underwriting? Compliance overload? A new consumer survey by loanDepot, an independent mortgage lender, suggests another, more novel reason: the fear of rejection. Fear that they will not qualify for a mortgage has stopped nearly half (46 percent) of all potential homebuyers from ...

Approximately a third of independent mortgage bankers that had not previously made home loans to borrowers with credit scores under 600 began to do so during the fourth quarter of 2013 as mortgage production volumes declined, according to a Richey May & Co. quarterly trend report. Richey May, a provider of accounting and business advisory services and technology to the mortgage industry, based its report on last year’s lending activities by 29 independent mortgage banking firms ...

Officials at TD Bank project that the lender will be able to weather the downturn in originations better than most because of its diversified product offerings – including portfolio mortgages – and an emphasis on cross-selling products. Mike Pedersen, president and CEO of TD Bank, said the bank’s goal is to continue to outpace the market in terms of originations. “We still believe we’ll outgrow the market, and that’s because we are underpenetrated against our customer base ...

As previously reported by Inside Mortgage Trends, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau did in fact announce plans last week to roll out a voluntary eClosing pilot project later this year – along with guidelines that lay out the minimum functions required of participants as well as the features the CFPB wants to test in the pilot. To join the bureau’s pilot on electronic closings, each participant must have a system that meets minimal technical capabilities and requirements ...

Mortgage industry participants should expect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to cast both a wider and deeper dragnet of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data compared to the Federal Reserve’s oversight of the nearly 40-year-old law, according to CoreLogic. A new CoreLogic report forecasts a more muscular collection of industry information following the Dodd-Frank Act’s transfer of HMDA supervision and enforcement from the Fed to the bureau, including a significant shift in ...

Agency securitization of loans originated by correspondents and mortgage brokers fell 27.9 percent during the first quarter, but there are a number of companies moving in to take up the slack as big-name banks trim down their third-party originator programs. Wells Fargo and Chase remained the biggest sellers of TPO loans to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, but their volume was down 41 percent from the fourth quarter ... [Includes one data chart]