It looks like Fannie Mae is taking advantage of an opening in the marketplace to unload some of its legacy non-agency residential MBS. Fannie is moving to divest itself of $1.1 billion in a transaction that was listed this week and expected to trade by week’s end, according to multiple market sources. After the Federal Housing Finance Agency told the government-sponsored enterprises in March to begin selling off at least 5 percent of their illiquid assets, the first round of liquidations took place in mid-May, as Freddie got rid of about $1.0 billion in seasoned non-agency RMBS, with Fannie subsequently selling approximately $2 billion of its multi-family commercial MBS. Round two began...
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae produced a combined total of $910.04 billion of single-family MBS during the first half of 2013, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking. That was up 19.8 percent over the volume generated in the first six months of last year. Agency MBS issuance declined during the second quarter, however, drifting down 2.2 percent from the prior quarter. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both saw production slow during the second quarter, by 6.7 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively, but Ginnie Mae posted a solid 8.0 percent increase from the first three months of the year. Wells Fargo remained...[Includes one data chart]
Rep. Jeb Hensarling this week provided a detailed blueprint for his vision of the MBS market that would replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a voluntary securitization platform that would be prohibited from providing any guaranties, government-backed or otherwise. The Texas Republican’s proposed National Mortgage Market Utility would be built from the work already underway at the government-sponsored enterprises to design a common securitization platform. Like the existing CSP project, which was assigned to the GSEs by their regulator, the NMMU would develop standards for servicing, pooling and securitizing home mortgages, as well as a “publicly accessible securitization outlet.” Hensarling’s proposed utility, part of his Protecting American Taxpayers and Homeowners Act, goes...
New mortgage reform legislation expected soon to be dropped by a senior House Republican is all but certain to go nowhere this year, but having a bill on file and in hand is a necessity in order for GOP hawks to keep their voice in the conversation on government-sponsored enterprise reform, say industry observers. By the end of next week, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, will introduce his long-awaited housing reform legislation, sources say. Details of the bill remain sketchy, but it’s to include a complete wind-down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with only a limited federal support for the mortgage market going forward, most likely housed within the FHA. Hensarling’s legislative effort has been overshadowed...
Mortgage banking and brokerage firms are about to start laying off production workers as refi applications continue to decline, but industry executives say the heaviest layoffs are unlikely to come until the end of summer. That’s when lenders begin closing mortgages that first entered the pipeline in May, when the application picture was brighter. According to figures compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mortgage banking and brokerage sectors employed 293,800 full-time workers in May, compared to 295,500 in April, a loss of 1,700 positions. Compared to a year ago, employment is up 10 percent. The brokerage sector alone employed...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced this that week that they will rely on mortgage sellers to make sure all the loans sold to the government-sponsored enterprises starting next year will be “qualified mortgages” that meet the controversial limit on points and fees. Some aspects of the QM standard will be easy to quantify and meet, such as maximum loan terms of 30 years and no interest-only payment plans. The 43 percent cap on debt-to-income ratio that’s part of the ability-to-repay rule issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be waived for the GSEs. The stickiest wicket is...
Private mortgage insurers may be gaining momentum as the mortgage market steers toward a greater focus on purchase-mortgage lending, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac data. The two government-sponsored enterprises securitized a total of $56.11 billion of home loans that included private MI coverage during the second quarter of 2013. That was up 12.1 percent from the first three months of the year, compared to a 5.1 percent decline in total GSE business over that period. Private MI activity is...[Includes one data chart]
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