Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of existence, the two GSEs aren’t going anywhere for the near-future, say industry observers. Two bills – one by a Republican GSE hawk filed two weeks ago, the other a bipartisan proposal soon to be submitted that would wind down and replace Fannie and Freddie over a period of 5 to 10 years – have cranked up the volume of chatter about the prospects of GSE reform on Capitol Hill. Don’t hold your breath because nothing has changed, according to financial industry consultant Bert Ely.
By excluding from the points and fees calculation compensation paid by creditors and mortgage brokers to their employees, the bureau prevents some double counting.
At least 170 non-agency MBS serviced by Ocwen Financial took combined losses of more than $1.0 billion in May due to accounting for principal forbearance that occurred before July 2012. The reporting issue allowed mezzanine bonds to continue receiving interest payments, and industry participants are concerned that the accounting could be an issue on other non-agency MBS. Moody’s Investors Service said the newly realized losses relate to loss mitigation by Homeward Residential. Ocwen acquired Homeward at the end of 2012. The servicing transfer prompted a disclosure by Ocwen to Wells Fargo, the trustee on the deals previously serviced by Homeward, in the May remittance reports on the deals. Wells said...
A slowdown in production at Freddie Mac was the main factor behind a decline in total agency MBS issuance in May, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. A total of $148.28 billion of single-family agency MBS were issued last month, down 2.6 percent from April’s level. May was the slowest month for agency MBS issuance so far in 2013, with slightly less volume than March’s $148.35 billion. Freddie’s production was...[Includes one data chart]
The bipartisan legislation to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that’s taking shape in the Senate would leverage key reform projects already underway at the government-sponsored enterprises, but it doesn’t tackle some of the key transition issues the market would face by putting the GSEs out of business. The reform plan being put together by Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA, has at its core the risk-sharing projects currently being designed by the GSEs, according to a copy of the draft legislation provided to Inside MBS & ABS. The Secondary Mortgage Market Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013 would also implement the common securitization platform that Fannie and Freddie are building under the direction of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The legislation would put...
Despite the best efforts of supporters readying another push to legislatively enhance the Home Affordable Refinance Program, a proposed HARP 3.0 bill in the Senate will ultimately remain a once-interesting idea whose time has passed, say industry observers. From its initial introduction during the 112th Congress through subsequent tweaking and refiling earlier this year, the Responsible Homeowner Refinancing Act of 2013, S. 249, by Sens. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, and Barbara Boxer, D-CA, has struggled to gain traction in the Senate. The Obama administration has mounted...
The Department of Housing and Urban Development will face intense scrutiny from lawmakers after revelations this week that the department may have suppressed information indicating much higher projected losses for the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund than it reported to Congress. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, raised the issue in a May 29 letter to FHA Commissioner Carol Galante, citing suspicious email exchanges between certain top FHA officials and Tyler Yang, chairman and chief executive officer of Integrated Financial Engineering, which performed the FY 2012 actuarial audit of the fund. The letter is...
Small lenders should be afforded “equal access” to the secondary market and the same execution opportunities as their larger contemporaries, and they would under a reform plan proposed by the Mortgage Bankers Association. A “concept paper” released by the MBA this week recommends immediate steps the Federal Housing Finance Agency can take by way of secondary market reform of the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on behalf of lenders of all sizes, including inducing comparable guaranty fees and eliminating underwriting concessions for large lenders. The MBA called...
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