The U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Housing Service has issued guidance detailing requirements for refinancing its direct and guaranteed rural-housing loans. Direct and guaranteed are both Section 502 loan programs but are different from each other. The lender for guaranteed home loans is a privately owned thrift, bank or mortgage company, which is also the servicer of the loan. The lender for the direct program is the RHS, while USDA Rural Development, which includes RH, is the servicer. Guaranteed borrowers are capped at 115 percent of the area median income while income levels for direct borrowers must not exceed 80 percent of AMI. Guaranteed borrowers are not eligible for payment assistance, which can lower the interest rate on the mortgage to as low as 1 percent. The assistance is for direct borrowers and is based on borrower income as a percentage of AMI. Finally, borrower protections differ ...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency this week unveiled a proposed rule on capital standards for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, acknowledging that the rule would not be imposed on the two government-sponsored enterprises as long as they’re in conservatorship.

Some rating services have concerns that a 20.0 percent due diligence sample rate is too low…

The average loan size of the package is $224,106…

Credit-risk transfer activity at the government-sponsored enterprises is expected to shift from debt note issuance that has dominated the program to more front-end deals with private mortgage insurers and mortgage lenders, the Urban Institute said.

Year over year, MBS outstanding grew by 4.8 percent, according to a new tally from Inside MBS & ABS…

The CFPB is considering cutting off public access to the complaint database, which was launched in 2012 under former Director Richard Cordray.

It’s official: The Treasury Department’s goal is to reduce the footprint of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Who says so? Treasury counselor Craig Phillips...

Expanded-credit products look to be a ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy mortgage market. Originations of the loans increased in the first quarter of 2018 while production in many other product categories declined, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. An estimated $10.1 billion of expanded-credit mortgages were originated in the first quarter of 2018, up 3.1 percent from the previous quarter and a 13.5 percent ... [Includes one data chart]

The amount of jumbo mortgages handled by a large group of servicers increased in the first quarter, according to a new ranking by Inside Nonconforming Markets. The 30 servicers handled an estimated total of $1.05 trillion in jumbos as of the end of March, up 1.4 percent from the end of 2017 and a 13.5 percent increase from March 2017. Growth in jumbo servicing significantly outpaced trends in total mortgage debt outstanding. Some $10.65 trillion ... [Includes one data chart]