The average daily trading volume in agency MBS reached $207.8 billion in March, a mere 2.66 percent gain compared to the month prior and a sign that investors are in a holding pattern these days, trying to decipher both the stock market and geopolitical events. According to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, average daily trading volume jumped 9.7 percent compared to the same month a year ago. In January 2017, $229.8 billion in product changed hands daily. Meanwhile, a recent decline in rates means...

Seven marketplace lending securitizations with a total issuance of $3.0 billion came to market during the first quarter of 2017 – a quarterly record, according to a new report by PeerIQ, a New York-based data provider and risk-analysis firm for the peer-to-peer lending industry. Total securitization issuance to date now stands at $18.0 billion, with 80 deals issued so far (48 consumer, 22 student, one mortgage and nine small and medium-sized enterprises) since September 2013, the PeerIQ analysts said. Also, the trend towards rated deals and larger transactions continued...

The Mortgage Bankers Association is sticking with its proposal to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac alive, but with new charters, while inviting other players to compete with the two giants in the securitization of conventional mortgages. The trade group this week proposed a utility-like model for the re-christened government-sponsored enterprises. They would inherit the personnel and systems the GSEs now have, but become limited-purpose, publicly owned securitization businesses under tight government regulation. Other entities could apply...

“Maybe we end up in the exact same spot as the last generation, maybe we end up with Corker-Warner,” said Calabria.

The seller of the Alt A servicing portfolio was not identified by name, but IMA described the firm as a “well-capitalized and long standing bank…”

Nonbank mortgage servicers – especially those that aren’t juggernauts in the mortgage lending business – were the fastest-growing segment of the GSE servicing market during the first quarter of 2017. A new Inside The GSEs analysis shows that nonbank servicers accounted for 33.3 percent of the $4.552 trillion supply of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac servicing outstanding at the end of March. The analysis is based on single-family loans in GSE mortgage-backed securities and does not include whole loans held by Fannie and Freddie in portfolio. Nonbanks increased...[Includes two data tables]

The Mortgage Bankers Association, this week, released more details in conjunction with its GSE reform proposal published earlier this year. Expanding on some of the concepts presented in January, the MBA paper includes more detailed end-state reform recommendations including elaborating on the transition plan. The trade group’s approach for reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac calls...

Despite various rumblings suggesting that a plan may be in the works, the Trump administration appears to have no current plan for reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Speaking on a housing affordability panel sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute earlier this month, Mark Calabria, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief economist, said the administration may even go with the Corker-Warner GSE reform plan put forth by Senators Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA. Calabria, former director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute, got...

Ed DeMarco, former acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, was named the new president of the Financial Services Roundtable’s Housing Policy Center last week. HPC, a proponent of housing finance reform, has called the current framework “unsustainable.” DeMarco took FHFA’s reins in 2009, shortly after the start of the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He then left the FHFA after a five-year stint and became a senior fellow in residence at the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets. Prior to his time at FHFA, he was...

Freddie Mac introduced a curriculum to help potential manufactured homebuyers in Kentucky get a mortgage and is now looking to increase lender participation in the program. The GSE partnered with Next Step Network, a housing intermediary based in Louisville, and three nonprofit housing counseling agencies to create the online education curriculum aimed at better preparing Kentucky homebuyers with blemished credit histories. Since the initiative was rolled out...