Mortgage banking profits have been squeezed as refinance activity continues to fall off, and some think the industry is ripe for turmoil from rapidly shifting new technologies. But a panel of senior mortgage banking officials at this week’s secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association uniformly boosted the industry’s prospects.
All three loan-production channels saw sharp declines in volume during the first quarter, but correspondent activity held up slightly better than the other platforms. [Includes four data charts.]
Many industry observers are bracing for significant change in the roles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as Congress has failed again to tackle the problem. But some analysts believe the Trump administration will steer away from policy changes that would rile major business constituencies and slow down a major component of the economy.
The House this week approved the Senate’s regulatory relief legislation, sending the package of targeted changes to the Dodd-Frank Act to the White House. With help from 33 Democrats, the measure cleared the House, 258-159, on Tuesday.
Real estate agents, who influence a substantial amount of purchase-mortgage business, generally favored working with nonbank lenders over the megabanks, according to exclusive survey findings compiled by Campbell Surveys and Inside Mortgage Finance.
The Senate this week confirmed Brian Montgomery as the next FHA commissioner and assistant secretary of housing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
It doesn’t look likely that the Federal Housing Finance Agency is going to take up a call by community mortgage lenders to look into allegedly unfair volume discounts made by private mortgage insurers to large mortgage lenders.
Tax reform legislation enacted near the end of 2017 will likely lead to lower home prices and provide homeowners with more money to spend on housing, according to a study by Hal Martin, a policy economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
The FHFA said reviews have helped align GSE prepayment speeds in the past few years while helping to make sure MBS investors’ interest are considered in the equation.
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