Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are likely to find the multifamily MBS space to be noticeably more competitive this year as increasing levels of private capital respond to improving market conditions, one top government-sponsored enterprise official suggests. One of the most influential factors that will determine how much volume the GSEs do in multifamily will be “more competition in the market in 2014 than we saw in 2013,” thanks to increasing levels of private capital, according to Manny Menendez, senior vice president of multifamily capital markets and pricing for Fannie. Besides Freddie and FHA, the three other main competitors for Fannie in the sector are...

Non-agency MBS issuance declined by 30.6 percent from the third to the fourth quarter of 2013 as the plucky jumbo securitization sector ran out of gas. The market produced $4.94 billion of new non-agency MBS during the fourth quarter, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking, the weakest output of the year. Although there were some gains in the scratch-and-dent and re-securitization sector – markets that are almost all private placements – production of jumbo MBS fell by 71.4 percent. Even with the late fizzle, 2013 produced...[Includes three data charts]

Most of what Fannie and Freddie earn in the fourth quarter will go directly into the coffers of the U.S. Treasury Department.

“It’s nearly impossible to get the information to the right person to vote on it,” said Bill Moliski, a managing director at SG Capital and former managing director at Redwood Trust.

The market produced $4.94 billion of new non-agency MBS during the fourth quarter, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking, the weakest output of the year.

Besides Freddie Mac and FHA, the three other main competitors for Fannie in the multifamily sector are life insurance companies, banks and conduit lending programs.

Comments made Wednesday by the Treasury Department’s point man on GSE reform, Michael Stegman, did not go unnoticed by employees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Urban Institute said that new FHA loan limits may have a limited impact overall, but they could have dire consequences for some minority neighborhoods. The study found that the most affected metropolitan statistical areas had two things in common: they have a high share of FHA-insured loans, and their loan limits have dropped significantly. Of the 35 most affected MSAs, 13 are predominantly minority neighborhoods, all in California. “Many of the most affected areas have...

Three House Democrats plan to introduce a new housing-finance reform bill that would leverage the Ginnie Mae mortgage-securitization infrastructure and private mortgage insurers. The reform proposal by Reps. John Delaney (MD), John Carney (AL) and Jim Himes (CT) would establish a system of government reinsurance for eligible mortgage-backed securities. The idea is to leverage the government’s capacity and market’s ability to price risk, they said. Their plan calls...

Michael Stegman, counselor to the Treasury Department on housing-finance policy, said this week that legislation to reform the government-sponsored enterprises is a top priority for the Obama administration. However, industry analysts suggest that Congress is unlikely to pass such legislation anytime soon, leaving the Federal Housing Finance Agency as the driver of GSE reform. “Indefinitely continuing a taxpayer-backed duopoly is neither sustainable nor sensible public policy,” Stegman said this week at the ABS Vegas conference sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network. He pushed...