Thanks to stellar fourth quarter MBS issuance – coupled with higher interest rates at Dec. 31 – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are likely to report their best quarterly earnings of 2016, money that will go directly into the U.S. Treasury. According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance this week, the general consensus among observers is that the two government-sponsored enterprises will post a combined profit north of $5.5 billion. In 2016, the two guaranteed...

In general, the Treasury nominee said his goal is to find a “bipartisan solution” to Fannie and Freddie...

Although heavy refinancing activity accounted for the fourth-quarter uptick in MBS issuance, 2016 was also a strong purchase-mortgage market…

USB blamed the weaker mortgage performance on “lower origination and sales volume.”

One industry source noted: “On January 20, President Trump will be issuing an executive order that freezes all past actions over a certain period of time. The FHA premium reduction gets swept into this.”

DB was faulted for failing to disclose second liens on mortgages in MBS and for concealing refreshed credit scores that were worse that the credit scores disclosed to investors.

The invitation to the SFR meeting provided some hope to real estate investors, who have a hard time obtaining financing...

One mortgage insurance lobbyist, when informed of the possibility, called it “great news” while two lenders we interviewed said it was an awful development…

Late last week, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disregarded the objections of the CFPB and gave PHH Corp. permission to respond to the federal government’s arguments in support of en banc review of the court’s earlier three-judge panel decision.“Upon consideration of petitioners’ motion for leave to file a supplemental response to petition for rehearing en banc, the opposition thereto, and the reply, it is ordered that the motion be granted,” 11 of the 12 judges wrote in an order issued Jan. 13. PHH’s supplemental response is due Jan. 27, 2017, and is not to exceed 15 pages. Back in October, the three Republican appointees ruled that the CFPB’s leadership structure involving a single director who can be ...

While many in the mortgage industry wait for the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether to rehear the arguments of the CFPB in its wrangling with PHH, the plaintiffs in State National Bank of Big Spring, Texas, et al. v. Lew, et al. have stepped back onto the legal stage at the district court level. Specifically, “Plaintiffs respectfully move [the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia] to hold a status conference at its earliest convenience to determine how this case ... can be most efficiently adjudicated in light of the CFPB’s petition for en banc review of the panel decision in PHH Corp. v. CFPB,” State National Bank and its parties asked the appeals ...