Home lenders funded $500 billion worth of new mortgages in the first quarter, a strong showing, but down 5 percent from the fourth quarter. Quicken Loans had the strongest growth rate among the top 10.
About 14.1 percent of the mortgages securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the first quarter of 2013 had private mortgage insurance coverage, but those loans were sold by some 1,631 different lenders, according to a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. Although Wells Fargo ranked as the top seller of MI-insured loans to the government-sponsored enterprises, with $9.85 billion in volume, over half of those mortgages were originated by correspondent lenders that may have played a role in deciding which private MI to use. Looking only at retail originations, Quicken Loans was...[Includes one data chart]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau late last week issued a proposed rule to clarify a number of issues about qualified mortgages and other aspects of its ability-to-repay final rule promulgated in January that is set to take effect in early 2014. The agency proposed to clarify a key issue regarding the QM status of loans originally securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, or insured by the FHA or VA, that are later subject to repurchase demands. Lenders have been concerned that such loans might lose their automatic QM status as agency loans, but the CFPB said they will not. “The fact that a [government-sponsored enterprise] or agency demands...
Bank of America earlier this year finally settled its long-running dispute with Fannie Mae over buyback demands, an agreement that may help open a window to the government-sponsored enterprise that has been limited to refinance loans. During the first quarter of 2013, BofA sold $6.52 billion of mortgages to Fannie – all of them refinance loans. The company hasn’t sold purchase-money mortgages to the GSE since early 2012, when the two broke off new transactions that didn’t involve refinancing of existing Fannie loans serviced by the bank. In fact, BofA only sold...
It was once thought that Basel III proposals capping the amount of mortgage servicing rights counting toward Tier 1 capital would force depositories to either sell MSRs or severely mark down the value of the asset. And although certain banks – including most of the largest – have indeed reduced the value of their MSRs, certain regionals still have sky-high ratios of servicing rights that are being counted toward this key measurement. According to new figures compiled by Sterne Agee, at least two depositories that rank among the top 25 residential servicers have Tier 1 capital measurements north of 25 percent: Flagstar Bank FSB at 55 percent and EverBank at 26 percent. The readings are as of year-end. The Basel III accords, which are on hold and have yet to be adopted, cap...
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