SCOTUS Sides With City of Miami in Predatory Lending Case. The Supreme Court last week issued a narrow decision in favor of the City of Miami in a case stemming from losses the municipality claimed it suffered from predatory mortgages. Industry analysts are divided on what the ruling means for lenders... Goldman Sachs Continues Progress on Consumer-Relief Obligation Under Mortgage Settlements. Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs is more than one third of the way towards meeting its $1.8 billion consumer-relief obligation under the April 11, 2016, mortgage-related settlements it reached with the U.S. Department of Justice and the states of California, Illinois and New York, according to retired Boston University law professor Eric Green, the independent monitor of the consumer-relief portions of the agreements ...

According to an Inside MBS & ABS analysis, the average credit score for GSE business in the first quarter was 745.1…

The company that owns the portfolio was described in the offering circular only as an “experienced seller.”

Industry observers like Tim Howard, a former Fannie CFO, said that while reducing the corporate tax rate would lower the taxes the GSEs pay in the long run, it would drain the value of their DTAs in the short term.

Consumer-direct LOs had a higher average base compensation than retail LOs but received much lower incentive payments.

AmeriHome Mortgage, a larger correspondent buyer of loans, recently said it’s hiring internal support positions.

Some in the industry believe the GSE common shares are essentially worthless with the junior preferred falling into the category of being a speculative bet.

Much of the talk has centered on the GSEs aiding liquidity in the manufactured housing market...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reported strong first quarter combined earnings this week of $5.0 billion, but that was down by almost half from the 9.9 billion they earned in the previous quarter. The GSEs attributed the quarterly decline to smaller interest rate increases in the first three months of the year and less income from refinancing. While Fannie earned $2.77 billion in the first quarter, a 44.9 percent sequential decline from the fourth quarter of 2016, Freddie earned $2.21 billion, which represented a 54.4 percent decline. “This is down from the fourth quarter of 2016, but up from a year ago. I know that this number has definite market sensitivity to it just beyond...

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has been vocal about his views on the GSEs the past week or so, and on May 1, he stated that he wants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to keep sending their profits to the Treasury per the terms of the preferred stock purchase agreement. Mnuchin kicked off the week by speaking at a conference hosted by the Milken Institute in Los Angeles. …