The Federal Housing Finance Agency is mandating that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac each enter into $30 billion of “risk sharing” transactions this year and move a little more quickly to reduce their $1.19 trillion of on-balance sheet holdings, including whole loans and non-agency MBS. The edict comes directly from FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco, who provided few details about the initiative during a speech this week to the National Association for Business Economics. DeMarco also announced that the regulator intends to set up a new government entity that will develop and manage the common MBS securitization platform that’s been in the works for the two government-sponsored entities. One reason for pushing the GSEs to test drive risk-sharing structures is...

The purchase mortgage business has been in the tank since the housing crash. Although home buying is on the upswing, will it be enough to replace the refi boom?

The National Association of Federal Credit Unions is urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to take another look at the usefulness of APR disclosures, among other things.

Merger and acquisition activity is perking up in the mortgage market with a deal set for unveiling possibly by Friday afternoon or early next week.

Reverse Mortgage Solutions has tapped RBS for a large warehouse line of credit that matures next year.

Nationstar Mortgage earned $63.8 million in the fourth quarter as it continued to snatch up MSR packages.

Fannie Mae is about to offer $250 million of nonperforming mortgages for sale in the secondary market.

Industry observers are scratching their heads after the Federal Housing Finance Agency this week took another step toward a future secondary mortgage market by announcing a plan to establish a single entity that would be used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – and at some point, perhaps, private issuers – to issue mortgage-backed securities. Acting FHFA Director Ed DeMarco, in a speech before the National Association for Business Economics, laid out his plan for a single MBS platform that would be run by, and apparently developed by, an entirely new government entity “separate” from Fannie and Freddie. The platform, he promised, would have...

Warehouse banks that extend credit to nonbank residential lenders ended the fourth quarter with almost $40 billion in commitments on their books, their best quarter of the year, according to exclusive survey figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance. The top five warehouse banks – which control about half of the estimated total market – had $19.9 billion of commitments on their books, a 4 percent improvement from the third quarter. Compared to the end of March, commitments were up 37 percent. Wells Fargo, the largest buyer from correspondents, ranked...[Includes one data chart]

Billions of dollars in mortgage servicing rights have changed hands over the past two years – and the selling is far from over. The question now is how much more will be sold by the end of 2013. According to analysts who cover nonbank buyers of MSRs – and other sources – $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion in rights could transfer over the coming 18 to 24 months, though some of that is in the form of subservicing contracts. “Over the next year the figure could be...