Possible changes suggested for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could lead to borrowers paying an extra $400 a month in mortgage payments, according to a new analysis from Zillow. If the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage were to be done away with, Zillow said future mortgage borrowers would get loans with shorter terms and higher interest rates. For example, without the popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, the typical buyer would pay an additional $390 each month on the median-priced home for a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage. Moreover, the conforming market would move closer to the jumbo sector. Zillow noted that a 30-year non-conforming loan would cost borrowers about $20 more per month than they now pay.

A battle is brewing over whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should allow lenders to use alternatives to the ubiquitous FICO credit score. Some industry participants argue that the current credit scoring system works well. Others complain that the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the GSEs should be doing more to encourage alternatives to a system some deem outdated. The FHFA has been evaluating alternative credit scoring models over the past year and charged the GSEs with closely examining potential changes in how they use credit scores. Right now Fannie and Freddie rely exclusively on the Classic FICO score.

Caliber Home Loans has announced a new mobile platform designed to simplify the loan process for borrowers and key players in the homebuying and mortgage financing chain. The platform features three mobile phone apps customized for borrowers, Caliber’s sales force, real estate agents and homebuilders. The apps provides efficient and effective communication among all parties from home shopping to as far as servicing the loan. “We are a retail shop that provides ..

Both GSEs have now paid the government the 10 percent compound rate of return required by the original senior preferred stock agreement, according to the R Street Institute. The think tank’s senior fellow, Alex Pollock, said it’s time to put the senior preferred stock purchase agreement to rest. Fannie just recently joined Freddie in this “10 percent moment.” He said because Treasury has received dividend payments from both Fannie and Freddie that equal the economic equivalent of repayment of the entire principal of their senior preferred stock, plus a full 10 percent yield, “it is now entirely reasonable for it to consider declaring the senior preferred stock retired.”

Commercial banks and savings institutions serviced $3.621 trillion in home loans for other investors at the end of 2017, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call-report data. After a brief spurt higher in the third quarter, bank servicing-for-others was down 0.8 percent during the final three months of the year. The industry’s SFO balance had been dropping steadily since the end of 2010 – with declining balances in 20 of 22 quarters – as many ... [Includes one data chart]

Earnings from production-related activity and servicing fell modestly in the fourth quarter, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports filed by a dozen top publicly traded companies. The 12 lenders reported a combined $1.125 billion in income from loan originations and secondary market sales during the fourth quarter. That was down 9.0 percent from the previous period. Some of the earnings decline resulted from a slowdown ... [Includes one data chart]

Fannie Mae is making moves as it prepares to relocate its iconic Wisconsin Avenue headquarters to a new building in downtown Washington by consolidating its three properties in Northern Virginia into one central hub. The GSE is looking to sell three office buildings in Reston and Herndon, VA, where it leases about 1.5 million square feet of space. Fannie recently signed on to be the anchor tenant at Reston Gateway, occupying 850,000 square feet. The building is currently under construction and Fannie is set to move into the mixed-use property in 2022. With about three years left before the move into the new Reston office, observers said the GSE could execute a sale-leaseback...

New Disclosures Show GSEs Keep Adding Workers. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started the new year with more workers on their payrolls than the year prior, according to an analysis of 10-K reports filed by the two government-sponsored enterprises. At Jan. 31, 2017, Fannie reported a staff of 7,200 workers compared to 7,000 in February of last year. However, two years ago its head count was higher at 7,300. Of the new reading, Fannie noted the total includes full- and part-timers and employees on leave. Freddie had a staff of 6,144 full-timers...

The Senate this week passed a package of amendments to the Dodd-Frank Act by a vote of 67-31, moving the regulatory reform debate to the House, where Republicans have pushed through a large number of more aggressive changes.

A group of mortgage brokers released a scorecard this week categorizing 30 wholesale lenders as either “true partners” of brokers, “in the middle” or so-called whole-tail competitors that are seen as taking business away from brokers with their retail outlets.