Hensarling to Retire After Term Ends. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, announced that he will not run for re-election and is retiring to spend more time with his family. Some think Hensarling’s departure could speed up Congressional efforts to enact housing finance reform. However, Cowen and Company said this is ultimately negative for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as Hensarling now becomes the top contender to replace Mel Watt as FHFA director in January 2019. “Hensarling has previously proposed liquidating the enterprises. At the least, we would expect him to shrink the GSE share of the market,” said analyst Jaret Seiberg. MBA President to Retire. Mortgage Bankers Association President and CEO David Stevens...
There were no seismic shifts in the demographics of the mortgage-servicing business during the third quarter of 2017, although a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis revealed an unexpected decline in the total holdings of the top servicers and a shift in composition. The top five shops held a whopping $3.716 trillion of servicing on their books at the end of September, down 0.2 percent from the previous quarter. The only top-five servicer to ... [Includes two data charts]
In an attempt to help its smaller seller/servicers achieve better pricing on coissuance transactions, Fannie Mae will launch a new “Servicing Marketplace” designed as an upgrade to an existing program that some say was seldom used. The new platform allows sellers to choose a Fannie-approved coissuance servicer and commit to sell servicing rights at the same time they sell the loan into a Fannie mortgage-backed security. All transactions are on a bifurcated basis; that is, the seller is still ...